The Tenth of May

When Nazi Germany invaded the Benelux nations, Switzerland faced the question: what if we’re next? The answer is devastating. Franz Schnyder was one of the most enigmatic masters of Swiss film. On the one hand, he became an epitome of conventional quality cinema due to his successful adaptations of local literary classics – on the other hand, certain higher-ups viewed him as something akin to an enemy of the state, partly due to this film that dared to show the nation as well-willing yet morally weak and not able to withstand a totalitarian threat. And while Der 10. Mai might look at the past, there were also current affairs. The Hungarian Uprising of 1956 got Schnyder thinking about his fatherland: a country whose official anti-Communism had made it too authoritarian for liberal bourgeois comfort. A masterpiece of political cinema long available only in a revised edit, finally restored to its original glory. (International Film Festival Rotterdam)