Grandfather Never Saw the Sea

Why do I remember one thing and not the other? In her film essay Grandfather Never Saw the Sea, Christine Huerzeler explores her own family history in an unusual and unusually poetic way. The film-maker interlaces family recordings, found footage and recent images into a visual and acoustic examination of her origins. Upon closer inspection, it reveals the frictions, cracks and unconfessed longings which ultimately betray domestic happiness as merely staged. Be nice to each other, says the father. We have a good time together. Beyond the personal, Huerzeler's film is accurate in documenting the atmosphere of an entire era. The unease of the individual is also the unease of a generation which grew up in a supposedly free society, yet lived under the constantly looming shadow of the Cold War.