La tendresse

For the first time in her lengthy career, Marion Hänsel entirely wrote her own screenplay for one of her films – without a co-writer and, possibly even more important, without a literary source to fall back on. The result is a surprisingly light road movie that does justice to its title, not only focusing on the tenderness between parents and son, but also between the son and his lover, and between the divorced parents themselves.

Frans and Lisa have already separated for 15 years, so what is it that comes to the surface when they get in the car to drive from Brussels to Flaine, a ski village deep in the Alps, to pick up their injured son? Indifference? Jealousy? Friendship? Love? When they reach the village, designed in the 1970s by Marcel Breuer, its concrete structures offer a unique background for this nimble reflection on broken love.