Claude Dagues

A climb to mark the 100th anniversary of the first ascent of the Matterhorn, live on TV. The programme, a coproduction of the Swiss, French, Italian and British televisions, was shown throughout Europe, in the United States and in Japan in a series of 5 broadcasts between 8 and 16h. This film is the reedited version by the french televison of all the broadcasts in a single program. Ian McNaught-Davis roped with the guide Heinrich Taugwalder and Jean Juge with Robert Bichler narrate the ascent while they climb by the original Whymper route. They follow the progression of Michel Darbellay and Hilti von Allmen who climb the north face by the Schmidt route. All them meet at the summit. Michel Vaucher, Yvette Vaucher and Othmar Kronig who were also ascending the north face are interviewed, and the program ends with the television teams descending the mountain. Ettore Bich and Paul Etter ascended by the Italian side.

After a nuclear disaster, children born in a bunker know nothing of the real world. A voice reveals the surface to them: the sea, trees, birds, war... Faced with images of the world above, their disbelief—"The surface? It doesn't exist!"—turns to agitation, then chaos: the group unwittingly reenacts the violence of a past that had been hidden from them.