Beresina, or the Last Days of Switzerland (German: Beresina oder Die letzten Tage der Schweiz) is a 1999 satiriccomedy film by Swiss director Daniel Schmid. It chronicles the story of Irina, a Russiancall girl arriving in Switzerland, whose innocent attempt to live the high life there triggers an unintended coup d'état in the country. The title Beresina refers to the Beresinalied, a patriotic song used as the code for initiating the putsch.[1]
The film is a black comedy where all aspects of Swiss life are satirized in anecdotes. The heroine deals with a retired P-26 officer who appears as her false "sponsor" and various sexual perverts at the top of Swiss social hierarchy. Their attitudes to immigrants are also depicted ironically. Even the national identity and modern history of Switzerland are caricaturized in the country's first ever coup d'état sequences. The film culminates with Irina's coronation as Queen of Switzerland.
The film was praised by Variety, where Schmid "applies his wicked sense of humour", to create a "rollicking socio-political farce that roasts just about everyone in power." The review also explained how Schmid uses "black humour to expose Swiss high society as a hypocritical facade hiding secrets from money-laundering to pimping, with the banks involved in absolutely everything."[3] It was the highest-grossing Swiss film of the year, ranking 38th at the box office overall.[4]
^ ab"Archived copy". www.nytimes.com. Archived from the original on 26 December 2015. Retrieved 17 January 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
