Directed By Hendrik Faller

Genre: Thriller

February 2019 Views: 11,821

Total Trailer Views: 50,256

Review: At the outbreak of a flu epidemic, English City boy Jack seeks solace and sanctuary with his parents at their holiday home in the Alps. When he reaches his destination they have evacuated and it’s evident that the effects of the killer virus have devastated this remote corner of world.

A haunting image of a lone horse is all director Hendrik Faller needs to show you that this tiny village has stopped functioning as place people live and work.

Unable to leave Jack faces up to riding out the disease in isolation. Until the gas mask wearing, pistol-toting Kara breaks in and holds him prisoner in his own home. He is totally unprepared and his pathetic attempts to fight back only serve to demonstrate his ineptitude away from the comforts of his civil, urban environs. He just wants her gone, but when a couple of aggressive strangers come knocking he is forced to reassess his situation. He knows nothing of the desperation that has ripped the village apart, the men who want inside and want Kara… She knows everything, but is saying very little to help get him on her side. Her prior knowledge is a divisive point of conflict in the face of their mutual need to survive. An unlikely union is created.

Dialogue is sparse, as the language of cinema does the talking for Faller. What we know and understand about these characters is in their faces and how they react to situations. But Jack needs to understand. He prods, pushes and fights Kara every step of the way. Inevitably the truth is even more devastating than the mystery Jack is trying to solve. 

On the surface Mountain Fever is an excellent, tension filled struggle for what’s right between a handful of scared and confused people enduring the aftermath of mass deaths from the flu epidemic. It is also a cruel metaphor about nature’s unwillingness to yield to human wants and needs. People are no more important to the planet’s eco-system than trees, ants or streams. Nature is neither malicious nor personal. It’s the virus that can kill your friends and family. It’s the snow-capped mountains and forest that physically cut you off from the rest of society. It’s the freezing cold that stops you travelling too far on foot. And as Faller brilliantly shows, once the id is denied hope, fear is nature’s way of reducing people to two simple choices: fight or flight. 

Stuart Wright

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