26/01/2024 - Matthias von Gunten’s latest film explores the difficulties involved in integrating a frequently ruthless working world which has no time for dreams and ideals

Ten years after the magnificent Thule Tuvalu [+see also:
film review
film profile], which won the Silver Sesterce for Best Swiss Film at the Nyon Visions du Réel Festival, Matthias von Gunten is presenting his latest effort in a world premiere within the Solothurn Film Festival where it’s battling it out for the Audience Award. Ten Years is a poignant film following four youngsters looking for their place in the world. Without fear or false modesty, the protagonists of Ten Years open themselves up to the camera, as if a close friend in which to confide without fear of judgement. Both modest and brutally honest, these confessions allow us to access these characters’ inner worlds, made up of dreams and fears, freedom and unconscious resignation.

Over the course of ten years, Matthias von Gunten follows these four youngsters who are trying to understand what they want from life. They’re taking four different paths but they’re united in their fears, their terror of not managing to reconcile their dreams with reality or the carefree nature of youth with the very particular requirements of adult life.

Pascal, a 17-year-old apprentice baker, is in the throes of a professional and existential crisis. What’s mostly worrying him is the trouble he’s having reconciling exhausting working hours with an unrelenting yearning for freedom which the family business is trying to weaken as if a biscuit crumbling in milk. The scene in which Pascal, his father and the other bakers are eating lunch in total silence while sat on plastic crates, as if tiredness has rendered them all definitively speechless, is magnificent. Pascal’s working life doesn’t fit with his ideals but still he can’t break away from it, unwittingly imprisoned by responsibilities which surpass him. His decision to speak honestly in front of the camera - as if it’s some kind of confessional - about how he came out and the dreams he still holds close, is especially poignant. Alongside Pascal we find 29-year-old Lucia, a medical student who dreams of becoming a psychiatrist. She’s spent years intensely studying at university and in hospitals, and she has no intention of throwing in the towel. As for the working worlds of 19-year-old future teacher Hannah and 28-year-old oboe virtuoso Victor, who wants to become a conductor, they’re demanding in different ways.

Four intense paths characterised by searing delusions and thrilling successes, depicted when hovering between certainty and the unknown, dreams and reality. The protagonists’ moments of doubt, the small cracks which see their determination morphing into profound reflections on the future, help us to access the inner world of these protagonists who are often filmed at key moments in their lives. Whether it’s Pascal smoking a cigarette against the light outside of the bakery, Hanna marking her students’ work while her partner relaxes stretched out on the sofa, Victor intent on silently rehearsing a partition for a concert in his bedroom in Berlin, wearing a t-shirt with a small hole in it (a totally different outfit to his get-up during performances) or Lucia admitting that she’s become “a philanthropist who plays the capitalist game”, each of their weaknesses takes the form of heartbreaking intimate confessions thanks to Matthias von Gunten’s incisive and empathic approach.

Ten Years is produced by Odysseefilm and Mira Film.

(Translated from Italian)