Standing in front of the open window, a soft breeze playing through the curtains, an elderly man strangely sways to and fro. It is, for the most part, a puzzling behaviour, but one that still suggests some basic pleasure of the senses: feeling the stroke of the wind, joining in its dance. Another thing we know: the two senses by which the viewer experiences the scene are absent from this curious dance. The filmmaker’s father, Horst, has almost lost his senses of sight and hearing as a result of a decline that is also chipping away at his memory. Once a loquacious professor, he has withdrawn into the semi-seclusion of his diminished mind. He has become an “enigma”, a “winter lake”, as his wife puts it.

The film is indeed as much a portrait of her as it is of him. In this quiet house where she must come to terms with this enigma, she writes down her impressions. Both protagonists are viewed through the eyes of their son, who films them with equal tenderness and the help of fifteen rolls 16 mm film. The camera, trying to blend into the environment as it shrinks and fades away, captures the movements kept alive by habit and observes those brought on by decline. In doing so, the son follows the mother’s lesson, when she says: “There is no point in bringing you back to where our journey once began.” A statement soon challenged by a beautiful scene which reveals that the memory of how the two first met has not vanished from Horst’s mind. It’s no surprise that the film’s title takes its cue from it. - Jérôme Momcilovic, Cinéma du Réel

DIR. HARALD HUTTER - 63MIN -2023 - FRANCE

**Winner**, Cinema du Reel, Grand Prix - "for the tenderness, the sensitivity of the path that the film breaks through in a family huis clos, abyssal, faced with the illness that affects one of them. For the density of its relationship with time, its silences in which the immensity of isolation resonates, the rituals it sets out to observe, its small everyday gestures that become so big, so brave"

"In a sense the film is about the process of erosion: dementia is not a fixed state condition, but a gradual slippage, and not even a linear slippage at that. Horst has better days and some memories that remain clear, even as other important facets of his life trickle away from him like sand in an hourglass....It’s heartbreaking, but also moving." - Guardian

"It isn’t often that we encounter films that are simultaneously incredibly personal and deeply resonant on a universal level, but through the unforgettable imagery and profound honesty of this film, Hutter achieves it in this powerful and profound examination of the most precious human connections.” - International Cinephile Society

"We become fellow objects of the landscape, companions of the subjects rather than pervasive spectators....Hutter allows the senses to drive the documentary. Despite a partial loss of cognitive function, Horst demonstrates the memory he has of everyday sensations as he finds peace in the natural rhythms of life. He meditates, he shuffles around the kitchen for ingredients for porridge or a sandwich, he stands in front of an open window and moves with the wind, he strolls, he sits quietly, he lays still." - The Michigan Daily

"How to capture a life in two days? How to convey the passing of that life? How to stay focused when you are both a film- maker and a son? The film begs more questions than it answers, but clues to the life lived are given in a series of old photo- graphic images of the younger Horst and Franciney, family and friends. Eventually, this too shall pass, as a pile of 16mm stock burning into ashes suggests. As a tribute to one life, it is a paeon to all life." - Modern Times Review

"through a series of portraits we observe a man’s attempt to hold on to a rapidly shifting and alien world." - Ann Arbor Film Festival