Die Kinder vom Napf (2011)

Directed by: Alice Schmid | 87 minutes | documentary

In the dark, a swarm of lights looms up. A group walks through the snow swinging. We hear children’s voices, talking happily. This is the daily life of the children of Napf, the children who live high in the Swiss Alps around the mountain Napf and have to descend to the valley to go to school. Some take the funicular, others are transported by vans. After school, the children help their parents on the farm, take care of the animals, drive piles into the ground, set mousetraps, mow the grass with a scythe. Documentary maker Alice Schmid filmed these children for a year. Every day she was at the school and went home with a child. In this way she was able to make a portrait of the beautiful nature in all four seasons, filmed from the eyes of the particularly mature children.

With the many shots of the surroundings, ‘Die Kinder vom Napf’ probably gives the average Dutch person a holiday feeling, and perhaps also a desire to live there too. The children are very proud to show everything to the viewer. They feel very comfortable in front of the camera and seem like born movie stars. While singing and playing they frolic through the image and in this way we get to know them one by one, even if there are fifty children who appear in ‘Die Kinder vom Napf’. Some come back more often, such as the special girl Laura, who is crestfallen in class when she is the only one who does not receive a diploma from the teacher.

Because the animals are such an important part of the children’s lives, they are frequently featured. Sometimes they also seem to comment on situations: when the thunder and lightning are talked about, the horses run away in terror. The environment is also very strongly emphasized in the sound. With little music, but a lot of background noise, this has a nice effect. The swings crack deafeningly and the cable car, containing the frightened Laura, makes a terrifying humming sound. The strong wind can be heard everywhere, and so nature is the protagonist in ‘Die Kinder vom Napf’, about which the children tell us everything.

Due to a limited budget, ‘Die Kinder vom Napf’ was made with simple means. Schmid recorded everything with a digital camera, because she really wanted to make this film. She herself grew up in this beautiful environment. Here we are presented with a kind of ideal childhood, in which people still live in a simple way. The parents are virtually absent, which makes it seem like a kind of child society. ‘Die Kinder vom Napf’ will in any case give the area more name recognition for the area, so that it might, as one girl suggests in the film, “become known as Hollywood and many people want to live there”. Maybe the school doesn’t have to close then…