David Sieveking’s documentary about his mother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s.

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To help his retired father, David agrees to care for his mother. Suffering a severe loss of memory, Gretel can no longer look after herself. She doesn't know why she has to take medication, would rather lie around all day, closes her eyes when she's too confused, puts butter on apricots, doesn't sleep in her own bed and no longer knows how to do even the simplest household chores. But sometimes she stills wants a glass of wine, a hug or to take a day-trip. As he gets to know who she has become (less flexible, prone to laugh and amazed by everything) since Alzheimer's was diagnosed in 2008, her son also finds out who she was before...

This winner of Critics' Week in Locarno is no tearjerker about the horrors of getting old. The director (David Wants to Fly) manages to film himself as the loving son who tries to save his mother from her lethargy. He succeeds in capturing moments of tenderness, humor and lucidity and to retrieve (glue back together?) the splintered pieces of an intellectual couple who married in 1966, were politically active and advocated free love.