Eighteen months elapse between Jotterand's proposal and the film's release. The complete cutting was presented by Tanner in October 1959 and it was only in April 1961 that the film was finally accepted by the Pro Helvetia Foundation who expressed some reluctance on the use of music in the film and on the end of the documentary. The film shows, through the transposition of Ramuz's text and the images, the profound upheavals suffered by the Waldensian countryside in the 1950s. The rapid shift of an agricultural population towards the secondary and tertiary sectors, the explosion of urban centers , the loss of regional accent due to the development of the means of communication, live scenes shot in the Lavaux with, in the background, the reverberations of Lake Geneva.
(Christian Dimitriu 1985)