Dimitri BurkhardWhen bad guys funnel large sums of money, Switzerland is usually at the center of action. Only in Hollywood movies, that is! Not all scenes are actually filmed on site, however. Sometimes, small details like wrong colors of trams or street signs in other languages reveal the trickery... For instance, the "Zürich" scenes in The Bourne Identity and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps were actually filmed in Prague.
On the other hand, plenty of blockbuster movies are filmed in Switzerland. Here are five more popular movies who were (at least partially) shot in Switzerland:
A Dangerous Method (2011)
A Dangerous Method is the true story based on Dr. Carl Jung, a psychiatrist who ran the hypnosis center at a Zürich clinic in 1900. The movie plot involves the difficult case of a young woman who captures the fascination of Jung and his master, Sigmund Freud. Since large parts were filmed in Switzerland, the movie feels very authentic and believable.
Contagion (2011)
Contagion is a movie about a rapidly spreading virus. Kate Winslet's character is a doctor from the World Health Organization in Geneva, where she was filmed on site in several scenes.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
The scenes filmed in Switzerland are sometimes trimmed down to mere seconds (the Zürich scenes in The Informant! were all but 5 seconds). But the heroïne in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is taking her time: Lisbeth Salander is spotted at ZRH airport, at Bürklipatz, in the old town, and she even stays at the posh Dolder Grand hotel!
James Bond: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)
From Bern to Grindelwald and even St. Moritz, this James Bond flick has used the backdrops of Switzerland extensively!
Night Train to Lisbon (2013)
This is the moving story of a professor who leaves behind his mundane life in Bern to find true love. Many of the earlier scenes of Night Train to Lisbon were filmed right in Switzerland's capital, such as in the train station or on a bridge above the Aare river.
Touching the Void (2003)
Sitting in for the Peruvian Andes were the Swiss Alps: Touching the Void is the true story of two mountain climbers was largely filmed on Jungfrau near Grindelwald.
(Pictures copyright by Zurich Tourism, Sony Pictures Classics)
The second picture from the Dragon Tattoo movie is in fact from an entirely different movie, Handyman by and starring swiss comedian Marco Rima (also the guy in the picture). And A Dangerous Method has been shot in Switzerland, but not where it is set – production was moved to Bodensee, which is in my opinion the reason, why its locations with the CGI implemented background feel so terribly fake.
Switzerland and movies is not such an awesome love story as one might think, it pretty much ends with these five examples (if you dont count all the bond movies that have been shot here). Even though they finally created an institution to make the country more interesting for Hollywood, they still seem to muck it up and miss one interesting opportunity after another (the last one being SPECTRE). After all, it’s still much too expensive to shoot here, so why not just shoot in cheap Prague when in fact 90% of the people watching the film don’t care whether the tram is red or blue?
And what about all the Bollywood movies? At least that seems to be a “love story”.
Thanks for your inputs. Note taken!