I do not think that Fredi Murer's "Vollmond" is such a bad movie as the almost thoroughly negative critics may suggest. After all: Murer breaks here with the Swiss tradition of the combination of realism plus wonders and creates a style that turns it around into something like a magical realism, which is highly underrepresented also in international movies.
After the 12 children disappear in a full-moon-night, chief-inspector Wasser and his collaborators from the criminal police in Zurich seek to scoop out every little hint by applying logic. However, they soon realize that with logic alone, they do not get too far. (Note: It is not by chance that Wittgenstein wrote that logic is a system of trivialities. By aid of logic alone, it is impossible to transcend logic.) So, Wasser decides to get additional information from the parents of the missing children which he visits. His desolate result is that they share nothing with one another except that they all live near water. (Later, he will realize that he shares this feature, too, since "Wasser" is water in German.) This is the stadium of logic, enriched by semiotics. Although this term is not used in the movie (logic is, many times), we can recognize its existence very well when Mrs. Escher describes solely from her dream the looks of every of the 12 disappeared children with most high precision. And it is also exactly at this point, when chief-inspector Wasser realizes that logic must be abandoned fully for semiotics. Semiotics, in the movie, stands for fantasy against conclusions, for self-liberating out of system of trivialities and turning around in circles. From this point on, Murer's movie is even an attack against logic. Wasser gives now up his job and organizes a meeting of the parents of all children which is broadcast by TV. What we witness here, has been called silliness. However, it is the fantasy that breaks out now, released from the cuffs of logic. Although none of the parents have any concrete information about what happened to their children, they accuse one another of being bad parents, they ask one another for divorce, get hysterical before turned on camera, invent apocalyptic downfall-scenarios and other nice things more. But how far do they get with fantasy alone? The 13th child, "OMM", appears with a smile on his cheeks, and suddenly the parents see their children. Unable to differentiate between dream and reality, the camera operators pretend that somebody has smuggled a picture into the camera. But the parents have not passed their exam, and when the ultimatum is over, 12 times 12 children have disappeared during Full Moon.
After the 12 children disappear in a full-moon-night, chief-inspector Wasser and his collaborators from the criminal police in Zurich seek to scoop out every little hint by applying logic. However, they soon realize that with logic alone, they do not get too far. (Note: It is not by chance that Wittgenstein wrote that logic is a system of trivialities. By aid of logic alone, it is impossible to transcend logic.) So, Wasser decides to get additional information from the parents of the missing children which he visits. His desolate result is that they share nothing with one another except that they all live near water. (Later, he will realize that he shares this feature, too, since "Wasser" is water in German.) This is the stadium of logic, enriched by semiotics. Although this term is not used in the movie (logic is, many times), we can recognize its existence very well when Mrs. Escher describes solely from her dream the looks of every of the 12 disappeared children with most high precision. And it is also exactly at this point, when chief-inspector Wasser realizes that logic must be abandoned fully for semiotics. Semiotics, in the movie, stands for fantasy against conclusions, for self-liberating out of system of trivialities and turning around in circles. From this point on, Murer's movie is even an attack against logic. Wasser gives now up his job and organizes a meeting of the parents of all children which is broadcast by TV. What we witness here, has been called silliness. However, it is the fantasy that breaks out now, released from the cuffs of logic. Although none of the parents have any concrete information about what happened to their children, they accuse one another of being bad parents, they ask one another for divorce, get hysterical before turned on camera, invent apocalyptic downfall-scenarios and other nice things more. But how far do they get with fantasy alone? The 13th child, "OMM", appears with a smile on his cheeks, and suddenly the parents see their children. Unable to differentiate between dream and reality, the camera operators pretend that somebody has smuggled a picture into the camera. But the parents have not passed their exam, and when the ultimatum is over, 12 times 12 children have disappeared during Full Moon.