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Cult Review
Senior Film Conservator
If you are looking for a plot, characters, or any kind of dramatic tension, you should probably just keep walking. 🏔️
Alpine Melodies is exactly what it says on the box, which is basically just Mary and Ernst Frey-Bernharsgrutter singing yodelling songs at a camera that looks like it was covered in dust.
Is it worth watching today? Only if you have a very specific interest in folk music or if you’re trying to annoy your neighbors by cranking up the volume on some high-pitched vocal gymnastics.
Historians will probably find this fascinating, but most people will just find it loud.
First off, can we talk about that name? Frey-Bernharsgrutter. It takes up half the screen just writing it down.
Mary and Ernst stand there with these very stiff expressions, looking like they are waiting for a bus that is about forty years late.
There is a moment where Mary hits a particularly high note and her eyes sort of bug out for a second. It is genuinely the most exciting thing that happens in the first five minutes.
The movie doesn't have the weird comedic energy of Sweet Daddies, but it has a different kind of strangeness.
It is the kind of strangeness that comes from seeing people from a hundred years ago trying to look natural while performing for a massive, clunky camera. 🎥
Ernst has this mustache that seems to have a life of its own whenever he gets into the lower registers of the song.
I spent about three minutes just watching the way the left side of his lip twitched.
The audio quality is... well, it’s old. It sounds like someone is frying bacon in the background the entire time.
The yodelling itself is impressive, I guess, if you like that sort of thing. It’s very athletic singing.
But the songs all start to bleed together after a while. One melody starts, it goes up, it goes down, and then they stare at the lens again.
I felt a bit like I was being interrogated by a musical duo.
It reminded me of the pacing in The Wishing Ring Man, where things just sort of happen because the director told people to stand in a certain spot.
There is zero editing to speak of. It’s just: song, pause, maybe a slight shift in posture, next song.
If you look at the background, you can tell they are probably just in a studio with some painted sheets. It doesn't look like the actual Alps at all.
One of the sheets has a visible wrinkle near the top left corner that kept distracting me. It looks like a giant interdimensional rift opening up over the mountains.
Also, Mary’s dress is incredibly heavy-looking. You can almost feel her sweating under those studio lights while she’s trying to sound light and airy.
It’s not quite as bleak as The Last Chance, but there’s a weirdly lonely feeling to the whole production.
Just two people, one camera, and a lot of vocal cord vibration. .?
I wonder if they got paid well for this. I hope they got at least a nice dinner out of it.
At one point, Ernst looks slightly to the left, like he saw a cat walk across the set, but he keeps yodelling like a professional. 🐱
This isn't a movie you sit down to watch with popcorn. It’s more like something you leave playing on a loop in an art gallery to confuse people.
It’s observant of a culture that feels totally gone now. Or at least, hidden away in very specific valleys.
If you enjoy the silent-era vibes of something like South o' the North Pole, you might appreciate the raw simplicity here.
But for the rest of us, it’s just a lot of ay-ee-oo-hoo sounds echoing through time.
I didn't hate it, but I don't think I need to hear a yodel for at least another three years.
The movie ends abruptly, which is probably the best way it could have ended. No goodbye, just silence.
IMDb —
1923
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