A Fading Man

An artist and schoolteacher Hanne lives together with her retired husband Bernd in a comfortable yet somewhat settled marriage. One day Hanne’s ex-husband Kurt, who she has not seen in years, arrives on their doorstep. It soon turns out that Kurt is suffering from Alzheimer’s and does not remember that he and Hanne are no longer together. Kurt’s grown-up daughter is away abroad, which is why Hanne and Bernd must unexpectedly take care of Kurt. 

A Fading Man, which had its world premiere at the Rotterdam Film Festival earlier this year, is German director Welf Reinhart’s feature-length debut, which deals with its heavy subject matter by combining warm-hearted situational comedy with a psychologically observational approach. As a film about the impact of a past relationship on an older couple’s current marriage, the film might remind some of another film once screened at Espoo Ciné, 45 Years (2015). Yet, in A Fading Man, it is not the unstable English climate which reflects the characters’ emotions underneath, but Reinhart seeks echoes for Hanne’s moods in the southern-German landscape of fog, a flock of sheep, and a lonely tree.

Ilpo Hirvonen