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Father and Son (2003 film)

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Father and Son
Film poster
Directed byAlexander Sokurov
Written bySergei Potepalov
Produced byThomas Kufus
StarringAndrei Shchetinin
CinematographyAleksandr Burov
Release date
  • 23 May 2003 (2003-05-23)
Running time
97 minutes
CountryRussia
LanguageRussian

Father and Son (Russian: Отец и сын, translit. Otets i syn) is a 2003 Russian drama film directed by Alexander Sokurov. It was entered into the 2003 Cannes Film Festival.[1]

Plot

In an imaginary coastal city Aleksei and Father lived together in a small rooftop apartment. Aleksei's mother had died when he was still very young and most likely Aleksei was raised not by his mother, but by a grandmother, whose antiquated clothing and furniture populates the apartment. Aleksei grew up largely without his father, a professional combat helicopter pilot, who now has returned to civilian life following a crash that left him seriously injured. Aleksei intends to follow Father in the military and is studying at an institute to become a physical trainer. He also had an (unnamed) girlfriend, who appears to have broken up with him because of his selfish concern only for himself. Father spends his time at home, caring for Aleksei's every need. They appear to live in perfect harmony, until towards the end of the film, when Aleksei suddenly questions Father's advice, turns his back on him, and goes off to his room.

Aleksei's harmonious life with Father, it turns out, though, is just a dream, in fact a nightmare of how he had failed to appreciated his father when he was alive, before Father had died of his war wounds, which Aleksei had naively assumed he could assess based on his limited experience in school.

Fortunately for Aleksei, Father's love for him is so great that Father returns nightly to him in the form of his guardian angel to comfort him out of his nightmares and assuage him of his guilt. Unlike Aleksei, his neighbor and best friend Sasha knows no such love and does not appear to have a father. Fyodor, the son of Father's army buddy, Nikolai, also has grown up without a father, after his mother forced the father––who had begun drinking as a result of PTSD––to leave the family.

Misread variously, Father and Son is an allegory of fatherly love and filial regret, a variation on one of Sokurov's recurring themes, the 'Parable of the Prodigal Son.'

Cast

Reception

Critical response

Father and Son has an approval rating of 68% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 41 reviews, and an average rating of 6.35/10.[2] It also has a score of 64 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on 17 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[3]

References[4]

  1. ^ "Festival de Cannes: Father and Son". festival-cannes.com. Archived from the original on 10 October 2012. Retrieved 7 November 2009.
  2. ^ https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/father_and_son
  3. ^ https://www.metacritic.com/movie/father-and-son
  4. ^ Nemec Ignashev, Diane (2020). "On Cinematic Ekphrasis: Aleksandr Sokurov's Otets i syn Redux". Film Criticism. 44 (1). doi:10.3998/fc.13761232.0044.112. ISSN 2471-4364.