My mother gave birth to me on the 8th of March 1964 in Zurich.
00:31
Thomas Haemmerli prepares the party for his 40th birthday.
00:31
Exactly forty years later, I'm busy with the final preparations for my birthday party...
Then my brother Erik calls to tell me that our mother has been found dead.
Erik and Thomas Haemmerli.
00:38
00:38
00:46
Title «Seven Dumpsters and a Corpse»
00:54
Thomas Haemmerli questions a Rentokil employee.
00:54
(Someone scarcely audible):
Until this is all gone…
00:59
Thomas Haemmerli (TH):
What were you thinking?
01:02
Rentokil employee:
Hard to say.
I don't know.
01:06
TH:
Did you try to keep
your mind on other things?
01:11
Rentokil employee:
Yes. You have to, somehow.
01:15
Th:
Of course. Someone has to do it.
01:16
Title «A film by Thomas Haemmerli«
01:20
Thomas Haemmerli is filming. Stains of a corpse. The Rentokil employee is scratching away the remains of the mother’s dead body.
01:33
TH (off):
This is my mother. Brünhilde Hortense Carola Gertraude Haemmerli, maiden name Meurer von Infeld.
Or rather, this is what is left of her.
Left of her body, to be precise. Because there are a whole lot of other things left.
01:58
Impressions of the huge mess in the flat.
02:11
An empty autopsy table is shown with a voice-over quoting the autopsy report.
02:12
TH (off):
The autopsy report: the corpse is a seventy-year old female in an advanced state of decomposition, lying unclothed on her back on the autopsy table. Rigor mortis in all joints. Epidermis completely discolored, greenish-black and peeling off in places.
Fingers, toes, and the tip of the nose are mummified. Short hair, with loose chunks, soaked in putrefaction liquids. Facial skin greenish-black.
Eyeballs sunk back into the eye sockets.
02:50
Criminal investigation department, Zeughausstrasse 11. Thomas Haemmerli wants to pick up the key to his mother’s flat.
02:50
TH (off):
The autopsy finding: heart failure. The police close the case.
Polizei, Gegensprechanlage:
02:55
What do you want?
TH:
02:56
To pick up something.
Polizei, Gegensprechanlage:
02:58
Well then, come in.
Polizistin:
03:01
Hello.
TH:
03:02
My name is Haemmerli.
My mother has passed away.
I'd like to pick up her keys.
Polizistin:
03:09
Can you show me some I.D.?
TH:
03:10
Just a moment…
Polizistin:
03:18
Thanks.
03:21
Thomas Haemmerli is standing in front of the mailbox of his mother’s flat. He is emptying it and enters the sealed flat. In it, he finds the almost starving cats and gives them something to eat. Then he discovers the mess his mother has left.
03:23
TH (off):
I go to Bergstrasse, bringing food for the three cats, who must be starving by now. For many years, no one has been inside the place – except for my mother. I had expected it to be messy. But what I find is a shock. The stench of putrefaction is infernal.
(to the cats:)
Hi there! Want something to eat?
Come on, kitty. Oh, you're thirsty.
Poor little kitty. You're a sweetie.
03:42
04:11
Family pictures from the thirties which show a happy mother in her childhood years.
04:41
Thomas begins with the documentation of tidying up. Doing this he focuses on different objects. He decides to hire a cleaning company.
04:44
TH (off):
I begin filming right from the start. I'm nearly always armed with a camera and instinctively document anything that smells like it might be a story.
Besides, as a TV journalist I know that a camera is a shield, providing protection against appalling reality. Seen on the screen it loses much of its power to shock.
TH (on):
Oh God!
TH (off): Where she had lain, there‘s a thick, stubborn crust of bodily fluids, blood, and hair. I call every cleaning service in town, but none is willing to take on the job. Finally the pest control company Rentokil agrees to send someone over.
05:10
05:17
05:37
The Rentokil manager looks at the bathroom that has to be cleaned and at the mother’s remains therein. He gets involved in a discussion with Thomas Haemmerli.
05:38
Rentokil manager:
I don't know what to tell you.
05:40
TH:
Tell me whatever crosses your mind.
05:44
Rentokil manager:
One of our technicians
will come and do it.
05:47
TH:
Yes.
05:52
Rentokil manager:
Those aren't bloodstains,
are they?
05:55
TH:
They say it's fluid from the corpse,
and decay… What do you call it?
06:05
Rentokil manager:
It looks to me like
traces of excrement, too.
06:12
TH:
I don't know. With a corpse,
it gets all mixed up.
06:15
Rentokil manager:
Yeah.
06:17
TH:
The problem is,
the floor heating worked too well. The floor gets very hot.
Rentokil manager:
06:22
It can go half a meter
into the concrete.
TH:
06:24
Could you explain that?
Why does it go so deep?
Rentokil manager:
06:27
It's like water.
Cont.
06:29
Rentokil manager:
We can't do much. We can neutralize it;
at least it will smell better.
06:34
TH:
Yeah.
06:35
Rentokil manager:
Was it your mother?
06:35
TH:
Yes.
06:37
Rentokil manager:
That's tragic enough.
06:39
TH:
Yes, it's pure horror. We knew it would be bad. But seeing it is a real trip.
Let's go out.
It's hard to take.
Rentokil manager:
06:51
Yes, okay.
06:52
Rentokil manager with
Thomas Haemmerli in the garden in front of the house.
06:52
Rentokil manager:
I must tell you, I'll have to
pay our technician extra. He won't do it otherwise. And our men are tough enough.
TH:
I'm happy you have them.
07:00
Well, Mr. Haemmerli,
Rentokil manager is typing on his calculator.
I would need to charge you…as a fair price…600 francs.
07:08
TH:
600 francs is just fine.
07:13
07:16
A Rentokil employee is slipping on coveralls in front of the house.
07:23
TH:
Been at Rentokil long?
07:25
Rentokil employee:
Two years.
.
07:31
TH:
Do you like your job?
Or didn't you find anything else?
07:36
Rentokil employee:
I've never done this before.
07:39
The Rentokil employee is wiping away the remains of the corpse.
07:44
TH:
I'm breathing through my mouth.
It's not so bad that way.
08:13
TH:
He throws away the knife he used to scrape away the crust.
Let's remove the hair…
08:14
08:15
Rentokil employee:
Oh, shit!
08:18
The Rentokil employee is outside, smoking a cigarette. His hands are trembling.
08:30
The Rentokil employee is going on with his cleaning work in the house.
08:38
TH:
What's that?
08:41
Rentokil employee:
Cleaning fluid.
08:43
TH:
Behind the door
is a real scrubbing brush.
08:51
TH:
Could we open the window?
08:54
Rentokil employee:
That one's open!
08:56
TH:
I meant the big one.
Can you walk on it,
or is it nasty stuff?
09:15
Thomas Haemmerli is questioning the Rentokil employee, after he has finished his work in the house.
09:16
TH:
Would you do it again?
09:17
Rentokil employee:
The worker fills out a report.
Not necessarily. But at least
Rentokil employee pulls out an invoice titled “House with corpse”
you get a break afterward.
09:34
Rentokil employee:
Please sign here.
09:38
Family pictures of the mother’s wedding with the lawyer Dr. Jörg Haemmerli from Zurich in 1963.
09:39
TH (off):
My mother was born in 1933 in Cologne, Germany.
Her father was the patent lawyer and engineer Ludwig Karl Georg Meurer,
her mother the Austrian aristocrat Isolde Helene Maria Frederike Meurer von Infeld. Brünhilde spent her childhood in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
In 1942 her parents divorce. In 1953 she graduates from high school in Kufstein. She studies languages and literature in Geneva, and receives her diploma as an interpreter for German, French, English, and Spanish.
Geneva – the UN headquarters – is a cosmopolitan city
and Brünhilde makes friends from all over the world.
In 1963 she marries Dr. Jörg Haemmerli, a lawyer from Zurich.
TH (off):
Among the guests from Geneva is the young Kofi.
The presence of a black man at a society wedding in Zurich causes quite a stir.
In the photo album, my Swiss grandmother consistently labels Kofi Annan as "the Negro." Unfortunately she didn’t live long enough to see that the Negro did do rather well after all.
Photos of the young Kofi Annan, labeled with “The negro”
10:33
10:34
11:00
Thomas und Erik Haemmerli discover the separated room for possible lodgers and start a fire in the fireplace.
11:07
TH:
Over here it's fine.
11:08
EH:
Our headquarters.
11:11
TH:
What is this piece of
handicraft?
11:15
EH:
Our own private incinerator.
11:20
TH (off):
With her usual mania for renovating and do-it-yourself jobs,
our mother built a room with a separate entrance,
which she rented out.
We set up camp there, using it as a base for our first expeditions
into the universe of innumerous objects.
TH:
I'm so excited
we have this room here, great.
11:39
Talk about "do it yourself"! Unspeakable!
11:42
11:46
The chaos in the flat.
11:47
EH:
What the hell is that?
11:50
TH:
Have a look outside.
It's pretty wild there too.
11:52
Pictures of the chaos in the garden outside. The statue of the Virgin Mary is seen for the first time. Brisk music gives the whole scene an ironic touch.
