St. Moritz – Como in 16 mm film
There are few places in the world as united on the inside by their outward contrasts as the most cosmopolitan mountain village in the world and Lake Como, the coast at the end of the Alps. Nowhere does the Mediterranean meet the Alpine to make such an impression. Nowhere is a coastal resort found so far into the mountains. Glaciers and ice that lie further down under the sinful sun of the same south. You drive over a pass and you are in the same country of different nations.
The boundaries are blurred just as they are in a film recently made by fashion photographer Alex Lambrechts. Using a 1950s Bolex (what else would it be?) and only one roll of film, 30 metres long and 16mm wide, using reduced frame rate that seems to fast-forward time by slowing down its perception. Timelessness emerges, something endless, three minutes long.
A woman alone by the lake, waiting, left to herself, waiting, but for whom? She waits in the best of all the old places, classic and unhappy, Mediterranean, Alpine, personal, eccentric, a little in love. On Lake Como she moves among poseurs, beaus and boating with Ernesto Riva. In St. Moritz, it seems, she breaks out, starts anew, begins to forget the one who brought her here. The world could end and one would only find out in St. Moritz a few days later, via unexcited information from a concierge. Madam, he is not coming.
Alex Lambrechts is a photographer living in Zürich with a typical photographer’s resume. Highly skilled martial artist, night club owner and former bodyguard of Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise. He is passionate about the elegance, heritage and beauty that unites the two places. One landscape is dominated by eternal summer cypresses, its sky supported by ancient columns, the other captivates with high snow white and deep dark coniferous forests that end in solemn lakes. And the people are like that too. Perhaps a bit crazy, too, if one considers sailing clubs two thousand metres above sea level, or shooting headlong down a channel of ice, or car racing on frozen lakes. People in role plays against the scenery of large hotels, like stages on which the characters of the time strut.
The hotels come very close to an inner world, shining like white messages of civilization on the coast or steaming like big ships in the mountains, sailing through time, coming from another century to pass through to the next. Their cargo is the essence of a past, a bit of elegance, a little imagination, a roll of film that connects two places so that yesterday may still exist tomorrow.
Model: Jasmin Brunner
Fashion, jewellery and accessories on Lake Como
and at Suvretta House:
Hermès Paris
Fashion on Lake Sils:
Jasmin Brunner The Label
Hat and jewellery: Hermès Paris
The newest issue of St. Moritz – Views from the Top is available at the Tourist Office and online!•Spring in St. Moritz – warm sunshine, birds chirping and slushy snow.•Inspiration for Spring?•