Film about a German-French girl friendship: The overwhelmed youth

17-year-old Fanny goes through life with heavy baggage. Shy, bullied at school, punished with a first name that provokes meanness, allergic to nuts. In order to escape the control of her worried mother for a while, she takes part in a student language trip to Germany. But when the French woman arrives at the host family in Leipzig, her exchange partner Lena is not interested in the exchange.

Lena (Josefa Heinsius), involved in “Friday for Futures” and, unlike Fanny (Lilith Grasmug), politically interested and rebellious, also carries a lot with her: fear of the future, of Putin, of war, of climate change, of that, old and becoming a coward and not being able to change anything. The family atmosphere is also out of balance. Her mother Susanne (Nina Hoss) has been teetering on the verge of a nervous breakdown since separating from her partner; her grandfather is from Ostalgia and is also an AfD voter.

Overwhelm is a word that both teenage girls repeatedly use to describe their current feelings. It’s all quite a lot. Claire Burger’s “Langue Étrangère” (Foreign Language), which the German distributor is now releasing in cinemas after its premiere at the Berlinale under the somewhat complicated title “Tandem – In which language do you dream?”, is itself a symptom of this excessive demand.

When Lena was once asked what she wanted to get involved in later, she listed: degrowth, ecology, solidarity economy, animal protection, neo-feminism, the fight against fascism. “C’est beaucoup,” says her host father.

A bit anti-everything

In order to win Lena over, the emotionally unstable Fanny soon creates a few spectacular problems: a pregnant friend who is not allowed to have an abortion, a half-sister – “very left-wing, very radical, libertarian, anarchist, anti-capitalist – a bit anti-everything “ – which suddenly disappeared.

Lena’s initial reserve gives way to interest and admiration. The Antifa and Black Bloc history surrounds Fanny with a sudden shimmer. The story even has a few cliffhangers and, back in France, sets off an energetic search by the friends for the missing woman.

“Tandem – what language do you dream in?” tells of the difficulties of communication in a time that has long since become synonymous with the term crisis. About confusion, fear of the future and the ways and detours to communicate.

Claire Burger, who grew up in Forbach in Lorraine, chooses a German-French setting in two historically significant places: Leipzig and Strasbourg. In the film, however, they are less a setting than a keyword. Lena’s mother marched in the Monday demonstrations, Fanny’s parents (Chiara Mastroianni, Jalal Altawil) work as interpreters for the European Parliament.

Just as the characters constantly list problem areas, the film also follows an additive principle. Almost every current discourse topic is brought up and touched on: reunification, the appropriation of the “Monday demonstrations” by right-wing forces, racism, police violence, climate crisis, Europe and so on.

One scene actually takes place in history class, a teacher gives a lecture about the Peaceful Revolution while wiping across a digital whiteboard. But there are also lectures outside the classroom.

The film flows more in the story of lesbian love that awakens through the alternation of languages. In the realistic scenes staged close to the teenage body – psychedelic mushrooms play a part in them – the collaboration of Léa Mysius (“Ava”) on the script is also noticeable. The room now belongs solely to Fanny and Lena. The political aspect has not disappeared from this, but rather a unifying, if difficult to grasp, force.