Ursula Meier's "Sister" is not an easy film. A boy, Simon, survives in the fringe of a mountain –and of society-, stealing from the visitors of a skiing resort. His only companion, quite unreliable, is an older sister, Louise, whose ups and downs force Simon to act way above is age. We don't know anything about how they ended up in this situation, though at midpoint of the film we'll learn the truth of their relationship. The background and the weather are as cold and unpleasant as the relationships portrayed, while the deadpan style of the film makes not a single concession to sentimentalism. Under these premises, Meier has built a forthright movie full of subtleties: not an easy film, but utterly rewarding.
Other reviewers here have already pointed out the duality of this high/low setting, brilliantly used by Meier. It mirrors the class distinction, of course, and their respective environments: the white, unspoiled snow on top of the mountain for those with money, against the melted mud on the hillside where the underprivileged survive. Simon, however, doesn't look for the wealth of the mountaintop. Surely, he strives for an improvement in his life, but his stealing is merely practical –he needs to buy food, toilet paper-. No, what Simon yearns for is tenderness, for a caring mother, for a life in which (the lack of) money doesn't spoil relationships. Downtown, Simon has to be on permanent watch out; up in the resort, he can still pretend to be a kid.
This fight against loneliness drives both siblings. What Louise cannot find in Simon, she looks for in random boyfriends. What Simon cannot get from Louise, he tries to get from a woman he stalks at the resort. However, those relationships are built upon lies that hurt each other, driving them further apart.
Needless to say, Simon won't fare well; eventually, his pretense falls when the woman he wants as a mother finds him cleaning her cabin: Simon can't any longer hope to be her son if he is just a chalet bellboy. To make things worst, he's caught stealing the woman's wristwatch. Was his stealing a betrayal, a payback for her rejection? Or was he taking a souvenir, a keepsake of the mother he lacks? It comes to my mind a little essay by Jean Genet, "L'Enfant criminel" where the author points out the symbolic value of the crime's object in the mind of the young criminal. It is not surprising, therefore, that the watch he has stolen is found on his crotch. Still following Genet, what turns someone into a thief is not the act of stealing, but the word "thief" directed at him. The word, the injury, is what creates the separation from society, a separation that will lead to the development of a criminal moral and the eventual transformation into a thief. Simon struggles to elude this process, while at the same time is doomed to it.
At the end of the film Simon returns downtown, accepting the place where he belongs. There's no other possible direction for him: once that the snow melts at the resort, there's no tenderness to be found there. Probably, as one character says, Simon will steal bikes through the summer. Nothing has really changed for him; he'll keep surviving at the margins of society. But, in this hopeless ending, there's the hopeful note too. Simon is going down, yes, hanging inside a cable car, when he crosses another cable car that goes up. His "sister", obviously worried, calls for him. These siblings, after all, do care for each other, and that's something that the lack of money cannot change. They are not alone.
Other reviewers here have already pointed out the duality of this high/low setting, brilliantly used by Meier. It mirrors the class distinction, of course, and their respective environments: the white, unspoiled snow on top of the mountain for those with money, against the melted mud on the hillside where the underprivileged survive. Simon, however, doesn't look for the wealth of the mountaintop. Surely, he strives for an improvement in his life, but his stealing is merely practical –he needs to buy food, toilet paper-. No, what Simon yearns for is tenderness, for a caring mother, for a life in which (the lack of) money doesn't spoil relationships. Downtown, Simon has to be on permanent watch out; up in the resort, he can still pretend to be a kid.
This fight against loneliness drives both siblings. What Louise cannot find in Simon, she looks for in random boyfriends. What Simon cannot get from Louise, he tries to get from a woman he stalks at the resort. However, those relationships are built upon lies that hurt each other, driving them further apart.
Needless to say, Simon won't fare well; eventually, his pretense falls when the woman he wants as a mother finds him cleaning her cabin: Simon can't any longer hope to be her son if he is just a chalet bellboy. To make things worst, he's caught stealing the woman's wristwatch. Was his stealing a betrayal, a payback for her rejection? Or was he taking a souvenir, a keepsake of the mother he lacks? It comes to my mind a little essay by Jean Genet, "L'Enfant criminel" where the author points out the symbolic value of the crime's object in the mind of the young criminal. It is not surprising, therefore, that the watch he has stolen is found on his crotch. Still following Genet, what turns someone into a thief is not the act of stealing, but the word "thief" directed at him. The word, the injury, is what creates the separation from society, a separation that will lead to the development of a criminal moral and the eventual transformation into a thief. Simon struggles to elude this process, while at the same time is doomed to it.
At the end of the film Simon returns downtown, accepting the place where he belongs. There's no other possible direction for him: once that the snow melts at the resort, there's no tenderness to be found there. Probably, as one character says, Simon will steal bikes through the summer. Nothing has really changed for him; he'll keep surviving at the margins of society. But, in this hopeless ending, there's the hopeful note too. Simon is going down, yes, hanging inside a cable car, when he crosses another cable car that goes up. His "sister", obviously worried, calls for him. These siblings, after all, do care for each other, and that's something that the lack of money cannot change. They are not alone.
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