Comedic documentary dissects Swiss neutrality 

The Swissminiatur leisure park in Melide, canton Ticino. As Switzerland struggles with its identity, the nation's mythical neutrality is put into question. Werner Dieterich / Alamy Stock Photo

In En Terrain Neutre (Neutral Ground), Stéphane Göel and Mehdi Atmani take aim at a pillar of Swiss society, with a comic road-movie documentary that questions the country’s prized neutrality as voters consider enshrining it in the Constitution.

The clock is ticking in the land of Rolex and Patek Philippe, where a founding myth of Swiss identity is at stake. After Parliament rejected a push by the right-wing Pro Schweiz association – backed by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party – for a “perpetual and armed neutrality”, it will now be up to Swiss citizens to define what neutrality should look like in concrete political terms. 

As the country gears up for an autumn vote that could redefine a key pillar of Swiss foreign policy, the intensifying debate offers a timely chance to examine a virtue Switzerland has long prized. Simply put, now is the time to ask a painful question: what does Swiss neutrality mean amid the geopolitical turbulence of the 21st century?  

This question brings together two distinct Swiss voices for a dryly comic and politically probing documentary that delivers a witty diagnosis of their country’s crisis of consciousness. Neutral Ground  (original title: En Terrain Neutre) is a road movie in which veteran documentary filmmaker Stéphane Goël is joined by Mehdi Atmani – named Swiss Journalist of the Year in 2020 – to depict their homeland at a turning point. 

“We’re trying to define something that cannot be defined,” says Goël after the world premiere of their collaborative effort at the Visions du Réel documentary festival in Nyon in April. “For us, it was a chance to go deeper into the psyche of Switzerland,” adds debuting director Atmani. 

Swiss identities across cultures and generations 

Even though Atmani, a Swiss journalist of Algerian descent born in Lausanne in 1984, and Goël, born in 1965, come from different generations and backgrounds, Atmani says they shared a key motivation: “a desire to question Swiss identity. To do the psychoanalysis of the country and go to the roots of what makes us Swiss, or not.” 

This shared curiosity brought the duo across Switzerland and well beyond – to New York City and the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) – where they captured absurd vignettes that reveal a society reluctantly undergoing major transformation.  

Neutral Ground  depicts young soldiers wrestling with the prospect of military service, commercial trade shows where Swiss weapon manufacturers profit from a war-stricken planet, and, most notably, a hotelier seeking to sell his luxurious spa-hotel nestled inside one of the underground bunkers Switzerland built into the Alps during the Cold War. 

The owner drily observes that his failing business – for sale at a modest CHF8 million ($10.1 million) – might be bought by Ukrainian buyers, turning the ironic scene into an uncanny metaphor for the collapse of Swiss isolationism. 

Swiss filmmakers Stéphane Goël (left) and Mehdi Atmani. Agora Films

After Ukraine

This scene points to the raison d’être of the documentary, as the notion of Swiss neutrality came under pressure after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. 

“It was the starting point of a certain momentum in our history, all in relation to our supposed neutrality,” Goël explains, adding that this came as Switzerland became a member of the UN Security Council and presided over the council twice.

“Simultaneously, we see this extreme initiative launched by Pro Schweiz, which puts to a vote a staunchly nationalistic and highly restrictive view of neutrality. We saw all of this happen and thought to ourselves: now is the right moment to deal with this vague theme of neutrality,” he notes.

Underlining how Swiss neutrality is a mythical construct, Neutral Ground  gives a cheeky history lesson. The film highlights the decisive defeat of the Old Swiss Confederacy at the hands of the French forces under Francis I during the Battle of Marignano (1515), which prompted the precursor to the Swiss nation-state to step back from European battlefields for good. 

Over the course of five centuries, the modern Swiss nation has metabolised what was once a military humiliation into a diplomatic virtue, prompting Goël to declare that “our neutrality is a privilege, not a special talent”. 

He continues: “The simple fact is that the French beat our asses and we did everything to remove ourselves from further conflict. Now this time should be over, as I believe we are also responsible for the rest of the world. We might seem insignificant as a small country, but we do have power because of our capital. That should steer our neutrality from privilege towards responsibility.” 

Armed neutrality: a Swiss stand at a weapons fair. Climage.ch

How to film an abstract myth

In terms of their own journalistic responsibilities, Goël and Atmani decided to avoid overt polemics, instead delivering their critical diagnosis in a more tongue-in-cheek style – a genuine expression of their own vibrant personalities. 

“My journalistic work deals with serious matters,” says Atmani, who earlier made waves with his critical reporting on Switzerland’s intelligence and espionage apparatus, “but I’m not that serious a person. I’m a fan of gonzo-style reporting, by naïvely diving into a new topic and bringing other people into the journey.” 

What both filmmaker and journalist agreed on was that filming neutrality is an impossible quest, as it’s illusory by nature and thus invisible to the naked eye. 

“So, what I particularly liked about making En Terrain Neutre is capturing the energy that diplomats, politicians, soldiers and businesspeople put in constantly telling and retelling the story of neutrality,” Atmani adds.

“What do these people have in their minds? Do they see the absurd underpinnings of their attachment to this political construct? And do they think that this narrative is still valid today? To me, it’s quite amazing that the energy many people spend on telling this story seems way more important than the actual neutrality itself.” 

Swiss filmmaker Mehdi Atmani in the Swiss parliament building in Bern. Climage.ch

The politics of comedy

Neutrality may be a rallying banner for the Swiss far-right, but it is supported by a wide range of the political spectrum, from right to left, including almost the entire conservative camp. No wonder Goël and Atmani soon realise that they are poking the hornet’s nest of Switzerland’s political (sub)consciousness. 

Goël is clear about how they chose to do that: “If I film power, I can make fun of power.”  

Disarmingly sincere and self-effacing, they have ultimately turned Neutral Ground  into a delightful piece of auto-derision that happily makes fun of a strange little country that perhaps takes itself a bit too seriously. 

“Auto-derision is something that we lack in Switzerland,” says Goël, who wants to ridicule the idea of Swiss exceptionalism. “We also happily make fun of ourselves in the film. The form of the film is even consciously anti-cinematic. Its playfulness and accessibility are all gestures towards the audience. In the end, we want to invite Swiss viewers to stop taking themselves so seriously and to simply look at this big topic in a lighter way.”  

After festival screenings at Visions du Réel, a theatrical release in French-speaking Switzerland, and an upcoming cinema run in German-speaking cantons, Atmani and Goël have already seen how their “newborn baby” is having its intended effect on its audience.

“I’m happy to see that every generation, no matter the political stance, is now prompted to think about their own relationship to neutrality and to question again what it means to be Swiss,” says Atmani. 

The filmmakers interview members of the Swiss armed forces. Climage.ch

For the journalist-turned-filmmaker, this road movie also became a way to re-examine his own complicated connection to a country he was born in, while his ancestral roots lie in Algeria. “It was like undergoing therapy,” he admits. “I still have many questions about my Swiss identity, but on a personal level, this amazing experience put me at the beginning of a new journey.” 

Part of that journey will continue with his trusted collaborator. Atmani is already developing his next documentary, co-directed by Delphine Schnydrig and produced by Goël. In the meantime, the duo hopes Neutral Ground will spark a much-need political and ethical debate in a country that has always preferred to remain closed. 

Edited by Virginie Mangin & Eduardo Simantob/ds