Off Season (1992 film)

Off Season (Hors Saison) 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 Swiss submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but was not accepted as a nominee.

Plot
Adult narrator, (Sami Frey) 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 (Paredes), an anarchist assassin (Chaplin), torch singers and seductive women.

Cast

 * Sami Frey as Narrator
 * Maria Maddalena Fellini as Grandma
 * Marisa Paredes as Sarah Bernhardt
 * Geraldine Chaplin as Anarchist
 * Ingrid Caven as Lilo
 * Andréa Ferréol as Mlle Gabriel
 * Arielle Dombasle as Mme. Studer
 * Maurice Garrel as Grandpa
 * Dieter Meier as Max
 * Ulli Lommel as Prof. Malini
 * Carlos Devesa as Valentin
 * Irene Olgiati as Couple

Reception
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 [hotel]".