BERESINA OR THE LAST DAYS OF SWITZERLAND

Too bad the title “Swiss Miss” is already reserved for an old Laurel & Hardy flick, but one likes to think that those old vaudevillians would approve of Daniel Schmid's cuckoo political satire. You don't have to be Swiss, or even own one of their cool Army Knives, to (S)watch this send-up of that slightly-cheesy Alpine confederation, where a bosomy young Russian prostitute named Irina plies her trade at the behest of an ambitious fashion designer/madame. Irina is a true Swissophile, enamored of all notions and kitsch having to do with the country. This brings her an elite clientele of monied and well-connected old men who hold the keys to the territory's infamous numbered-banking system and darkest military secrets. Irina happily cavorts for them in fetishized traditional costumes, playing to the johns? (johanns??) ardent patriotism as well as perversions. But the naive and oddly-innocent hooker, who only wants Swiss citizenship for herself and her family, becomes a pawn in a Machiavellian power play that abruptly backfires. It's one of the most sidesplitting geopolitical coups since the Duchy of Grand Fenwick conquered the USA in “The Mouse that Roared.” Ask yourself if it could ever happen here. (In German with English subtitles.)