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Swiss writer-director Carmen Jaquier’s Swiss-language debut feature Thunder, is about adolescent sexual awakening set at the cusp of the 19th and 20th centuries. It’s the story of Elisabeth (Lilith Grasmug), a teenage novitiate who, as she’s about to take her vows, is told of her elder sister Innocente’s sudden death.
She climbs every mountain on the long walk to her parent’s farm, located in a remote village in the Alps.
Marine Atlan’s extraordinary cinematography captures the mountain landscapes and luscious valleys but also the darkness lurking behind the Alpine shutters of Elisabeth’s hometown where it’s forbidden to discuss what happened to her sister.
Underpinning all of this is the town’s suppression of female adolescent sexuality because, they claim, young women who engage in sexual activity must be doing the work of the devil.
Jaquier said during a panel for the film at Deadline’s Contenders International event that it was important for her and her collaborators to take the present back to the past, “to give to the audience the realization that the historical is set today. … It’s really important for the themes of the film to realize that it’s not just from the past — it also happens today, in different forms, for sure.”
Jaquier said it’s difficult for Elisabeth “because she’s looking for the truth” and people are trying to “mute” her from discovering what happened to her sister.
The film’s set in the south of Switzerland, close to the Alps, a region that couldn’t be reached easily, and it was totally closed in winter because if the snow. The isolation caused people to speculate in old-time spirits to guard off whatever it was they feared — especially the fear, and disapproval, of teenage girls and boys discovering intimacy.
Jaquier has a special relationship with the location because it’s where her great-grandmother grew up, and she used her old diaries for background.
Jaquier conceded that Thunder, which is Switzerland’s official Oscar entry, is about God and sex.
“God is everywhere, and first of all, it’s inside us,” she said. “Our bodies are our house, where our faith can connect to our environment, which is the nature for the film — like the forest, the rivers, the insects. … We had a really respectful and connected shooting there.”
She added that the film is also “about men and what men are doing with God, and how men are talking about God.”
Jaquier, a cinematographer herself, worked especially closely with Atlan on the look of the film. ”We were looking for unromantic shots because it was really important to stay with the narration and stay with the characters,” she said, adding the cinematography always connected with the narration.
Vanessa Kirby (Napoleon) saw Thunder at the 2022 Marrakesh Film Festival “and she really loved it,” Jaquier recalls. They kept in touch.
“She had questions about the film and how we worked, also with the actors and the cinematographer, and then she became kind of a friend of the film and she decided to support us” by becoming an executive producer, the filmmaker said.
Jaquier is concentrating on the film’s international release but gave a hint of a suggestion that she and Kirby might work together on a project one day.
Check back Monday for the panel video.
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