“The wolf often comes in sheep’s clothing,” comments a disdainful prison warden in Maria Brendle’s ambitious combination of period piece and courtroom drama. The Swiss director’s debut feature, premiering at the Locarno Film Festival‘s parallel section Swiss Panorama (dedicated to national film productions), takes both its story and title from the landmark court code of Frieda Keller. The 25-year-old seamstress (confidently played by Julia Buchmann) stood trial for killing her 5-year-old son. Little Ernstli was the result of repeated sexual violence by her former employer, knowing very well that the laws in 1904 St. Gallen were skewed against her. To what extreme extent is partially exposed as Frieda stands trial for a crime the faltering plot never fully investigates.
This lack of psychological and legal analysis is all the more frustrating since several leading characters pursue just that. However, their research reveals more about their own representative social and legal stances, as well as Swiss law, than about Frieda’s specific situation. To escape social stigma, she kept Ernstli a secret until financial destitution and the crushing cost of providing for him led to her drastic step. Some saw her as a cold-blooded murderer, but many more sympathized with her desperate situation. This heated debate, gesturing towards the growing women’s movement and wider reformist impulses in the rigidly reactionist Swiss society, frames the legal procedure. As it progresses, its key players and their allies utterly overshadow Frieda.
For most of the time, she remains a pale figure behind prison bars with no intention of defending herself. All the more eager is her defense attorney, Arnold Janggen (Maximilian Simonischek). His outspoken spouse, Gesine (Marlene Tanczik), a Berlin stage actress, becomes Frieda’s vocal ally. Even uptight prosecutor Walter Gmür (Stefan Merki), who presses for the death penalty, wants the truth to prevail. And also, he has a wife in pragmatic Erna (Rachel Braunschweig), who closely watches his tactics. Each of them is a representative of public attitude, both towards the case and the era’s social-structural and political positions. There was significant public criticism of laws skewed against Frieda – and the countless lower-class women who suffered similar fates.
Director-writer Brendle who earned an Oscar nomination for her short film Ala Kachuu – Take and Run shows skill in defining nuanced characters through a few pointed interactions. Janggen reveals the limits of his progressive thinking as he admonishes his wife against the supposed unfeminine indecency and fertility risk of bicycling. An outwardly cold childcarer serving as a witness for the prosecution reveals deep affection for Ernstli. And Gmür starts to realize that Frieda isn’t the ruthless criminal as which he painted her in court. Still, the legal specifications of the place and time, the complex social climate highlighted by the widely discussed case, and the intertwining hierarchies of class and gender almost crush the plot.
Courtroom exchanges about motive and moral blame map onto the reform currents of Swiss law. A handful of scenes giving in to melodramatic excess feel bizarrely out of place in a scenario marked by emotional and visual restraint, historic accuracy, and moral sensitivity. With a look and feel closer to TV drama than cinema, Frieda’s Fall still works well as a sober lesson on the brutal bias historically hidden behind Switzerland’s façade of civil equality and balanced justice.
- OT: Frieda’s Fall
- Director: Maria Brendle
- Year: 2024
