Peter Liechti's parents are over eighty years old and have been married for over sixty years. The Swiss artist and filmmaker himself is now also over sixty, and in Vaters Garten - Die Liebe meiner Eltern he creates a touching portrait of an unlikely couple. In terms of temperament and interests, Hedi and Max are as different as night and day. One wonders whether they are or ever were happy and what keeps them together. The two represent an almost outdated concept of a relationship based on permanence, loyalty and friendship, and of course on conservative gender roles. What Max decides, Hedi has to follow.
Liechti - once again combining the functions of director, screenwriter, cameraman and producer - combines observation and the parents' own statements, adding a puppet theater as an abstracting layer in which he brings himself into play. He makes visible the gap between strangeness and closeness and the deep affection that bridges it. And, what is really astonishing, he leaves the dignity of the elderly intact.
