Off Season (1992 film)


Off Season is a 1992 comedy film by Daniel Schmid, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Martin Suter. The film is semi-autobiographical for Schmid, who re-imagines the hotel he grew up in the Swiss Alps. The French-Swiss-German co-production premiered at the Locarno International Film Festival in August 1992, followed by a screening at the Toronto International Film Festival on 12 September 1992. The film was the List of Swiss [submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film|Swiss submission] for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but was not accepted as a nominee.

Plot

Adult narrator, recalls his mysterious childhood at a mountainside hotel which he shared with his mother, grandmother and the hotel's guests. The hotel is host to a series of interesting guests, from the actress, Sarah Bernhardt, an anarchist assassin, torch singers and seductive women.

Cast

The film was well received by Variety, "Hors Saison is an unabashed cinematic circus populated by a Fellini-like cast of caricatures. It is irony and good humour make it high-class, entertainment for family audiences as well as the director's art house fans." David Robinson wrote in The Times that the film offers "rich nostalgia" and that it "delights in the colourful ghosts of the place ".