Always Wanted to Be God Never Wanted to Do Good

Patrick Bussard cut down three crosses high in the Swiss mountains to protest the display of Christian symbols in the natural landscape. Shortly after his conviction, he calmly declares that he has no regrets: there are plenty of places where the church makes its presence felt, he argues, without needing to do so on mountaintops as well. His argument is developed through a series of situations involving billboards in public space.

In a phone call, the director himself unsuccessfully objects to a sign placed in front of his house bearing the Bible verse, “In God alone is my rest.” Another man takes matters into his own hands, using an angle grinder to cut down the metal frame of a billboard that reads: “I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life.”

The scenes unfold at a leisurely pace, observed without comment, but with an eye for the absurdity of the situations. The opening scene is a contrast: fast, dynamic, and shot vertically in phone format, it introduces a paraglider who loses control of his wing and is only too glad to find a cross on top of a mountain.