“If there is a back door, use it,” says Swiss cleaning company boss Thibault (Alexis Manenti, star and co-writer of Ladj Ly’s Les Misérables [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Ladj Ly
scheda film]) to his undocumented Filipina workers, who are the lifeblood and backbone of his business, which cleans luxury chalets. Dominik Locher sets his third feature, Enjoy Your Stay, in the ritzy, picturesque ski town of Verbier in the Swiss Alps, creating a no-holds-barred fictional examination – but based on real migrant accounts – of the horrors experienced by undocumented workers as they help the resort machinery keep on churning. With a screenplay penned by the director himself and Honeylyn Joy Alipio (both credited as the creators of the movie), the feature has had its world premiere in the Panorama strand of the Berlinale.

Luz (Mercedes Cabral) has been working for Thibault’s cleaning company for several years alongside other Filipina workers paid dismally low wages, including Mae (Hasmine Killip), Aileen (Anna Luna) and Susie (Donna Cariaga). After her ex-husband, Tonio (Nico Antonio), threatens to take custody of their daughter Sofia (Erinrose Espiritu) via a reality-TV show appearance in the Philippines, Luz begs to return to Manila – so Thibault eventually strikes her a deal to help her earn more money. Luz’s only moment of true respite in the entire film seems to come when she’s offered a shot of rakija by a group of Balkan workers to celebrate the New Year. Even then, it takes her a moment to trust that it’s not a trap, and we know it might be after witnessing workers physically hustled into buildings or having their passports confiscated.

With strong performances by the cast, particularly Cabral – who moves from sympathetic to cutthroat in a simple change of gaze – the title Enjoy Your Stay feels more like a threat from the resort industry than a welcoming gesture. The relationship between Luz and Thibault is one of the story’s most intriguing elements, developing into a villainous co-dependency in which the latter knows he can exploit his worker while also understanding that losing her could mean the end of his business.

The film’s colours are saturated to the point of artificiality, with frantic cinematography lensed expertly by Jeanne Lapoirie to match, capturing the faux-beautiful environment in a way that can only be described as revealing its terrible violence. The camera is as shaky and mobile as Luz and her efforts to keep sane, but never so chaotic as to be dizzying. Through this, Locher cultivates a sort of evil veneer to Verbier, keeping viewers on edge in a town so superficially majestic.

Enjoy Your Stay creeps into the territory of psychological drama at times, in which we are privy to understanding that the workers suffer terribly at the hands of both the tourists and their employers; trashed chalets ultimately are the least of their worries. The film’s pacing becomes its main point of contention, as extensive exposition delays our arrival to the meat of the story. By the time Luz commits to her morally dubious scheme, the work is nearly over, leaving little time to explore her spot between a rock and a hard place.

Regardless, the intensity with which Locher carves out the rest of the story – many times, via the blood and hard-earned money of his undocumented heroes – truly sends shocks to the core. Enjoy Your Stay lays bare these terrifying systems to which many are completely oblivious or otherwise ignorant of. There are rules in Switzerland, shouts Thibault, but he omits the fine print: with enough privilege, none of that really matters.

Enjoy Your Stay is a production by Switzerland’s Close Up Films, co-produced by France’s JBA Production. Be For Films has the rights to the film’s world sales.