Father and Son

The second film in the trilogy director Alexander Sokurov (Russian Ark) began with Mother and Son (1996) focuses on the obsessive, intimate love between a youthful father and his teenage son. They play sport and tousle together, confide in and are everything to each other – but now the son is close to adulthood, it's time to separate.

Apparently Sokurov intended to show that the ambivalence of their lover-like relationship is due to the father's unresolved feelings for his dead wife, but the film is not entirely successful in communicating that. Their closeness inspires jealousy in the son's girlfriend, a neighbour and a visitor, yet the homo eroticism in Father and Son is not just between them, but in the way the camera views other men, particularly soldiers. Although this allegedly unintentional subtext could offend, it does not, due to the hyper-real, mythic tone. The slow pace of the film is offset by a pervasive, abstract sensuality, emphasised by Alexander Burov's beautiful cinematography. Whispering kettles and dripping taps form an industrial ambiance that helps to slow time down and frame the background – a dark quiet house that is as insular as this familial relationship.

Although Father and Son will frustrate those seeking a more plot-driven film, it is memorable. The indefinable closeness between the two men is never threatening. It merely emphasises the similarity between what philosopher CS Lewis described as the Four Loves – storage (familial love), love between friends (philia), eros (sexual love) and agape (spiritual love).

***/***** stars.

This is an extraordinary film that explores an area still barely touched by artists and other, academic psychologists: the father-son bond, its complexity, ambivalence, pathos, and depth. All are illuminated by the director, Alexander Sokurov. The text is spare; the cinematography is heartbreakingly beautiful. (I have not seen a man's face explored as intimately on screen since Olivier Martinez was filmed in THE CHAMBERMAID ON THE TITANIC.) Every man who has had a father must see this film. It speaks of what Nicole Oxenhandler calls the eros of parenthood but now at the level of the male's late adolescence. Sokurov understands the tension between love and rivalry that is at the core of the son-father relationship. Like the relationship itself, the audio is quiet, with the occasional outburst. Sokurov confirms that a young man learns how to love (women, other men, eventually his own sons and daughters) by loving his father, in early boyhood (which we only have hints about in the film) and then again at the time when son and father must separate. Fathers, take you son to see this film.

Time has passed before seeing a film that was so heart warming and involving. I have ever loved slow and sometimes annoying movies. But for some reason I wasn't intrigued by the genre anymore (just know one of my favorite is 'Aliens''86).

I started watching it and I felt so charmed by it all. The story is practically inexistent but you won't mind.The visual aspect and how things are going in this lovely and simple way can't let you indifferent.

As some others said it is although sensual and homo erotic. Such a relationship between father and son is almost unthinkable but not impossible. This in fact is not that important seen the poor story 'content'.

If you watch this movie in a relaxed way you will feel very good in the end, especially if you're not going with the idea of expecting great things.

I've seen this film a week ago, it still lives on my mind. It was a beautiful cinematic experience. It was a modern language of Father & Son relationship, by only through cinematography. It was a sensational work, brave enough to starting off with the scene of physical bonding between 2 males (Not homosexual, it is purely artistic expression). How long we've been neglecting the fundamental love between Father & Son. While we are pretty much focused on Mother & Son relationship(Blame Proust for that matter).

It could have some elements can be analyzed as a homosexual content but it is purely how much we are exposed too much and damaged by cultural sensitivity in sexual content in the normal, pornographic movie and lost its pure sense to enjoy art. So objection to all other viewer's seen this movie as homo-erotic movie, the see it again how this is all well portrayed in poetical way.

How two are created their own world under the rooftop apartment under the frozen Russian sky, based on father's full sacrifice for his only son,through his agony as an adolescent young boy who is still not fully grown up as an adult, forming 'love','freindship' and 'independency', yet but still going under.

There are sub-contents such as 'male-female' relationship, which are totally based on emotion and built on the sexual difference and desire. Also there is a crash between 'musculinity' and 'sensuality'. Also, of course 'agony' as lover, and who need to separate themselves from the love to achieve its true 'love' statues.

The camera works and metaphors are the extreme beauty of this movie. The close-ups of actors are exploring emotions. Sometimes not quite in the center of the angle demonstrates their unsettled moods.Also the metaphors such as 'wooden bridge', 'football' and 'wrestling' etc, all deliberately building up the story masterfully.

The music contribute those fiercely beautiful sadness into the movie, and it also reflects their sensuality at the same time.

Men's world is not full of 'muscline' but also there are so much depths in it, as shown here in the movie. Father loves son and son does same. But they need to separate as to grow and give.

I still not sure if there are any mythology injected here, but it's all my guess, so fill me in.

It is a sensation, in its subject matter and also in depth as an art film. Not many films in decent years has passed beyond the expectation in how to tell a story. This film is a proved evidence of what film could achieve a state of art.

Just a short note: It seems that a lot of people don't know what to make of Aleksandr Sokurov's "Father & Son". Though more accessible than the monumental "Russian Ark", "Father" is still a baffling, hard film to grasp. Looking like an archival photograph from beginning to end and lacking a traditional story, it very much resembles a dream. There's a lot of vague poetic talk about abandonment, security, being saved, and such. Largely abstract, one of the few concrete elements of the film is the fact that both father (Andrej Shetinin) and son (Alexei Nejmyshev) are beautiful. Shetinin especially is stunning. It's not unexpected for people to see some homoerotic angles. When a film is this abstract I guess the tendency is to latch on to the most obvious, most concrete aspect. And we can never underestimate the fear—possibly homophobia?—of seeing men getting emotional with each other, much less 2 attractive ones. It's a taboo so strongly ingrained in some cultures that it surpasses the simple fact that the 2 men in question are father and son. It's rare for me to see explorations of paternal bonds on film, especially one this deep so I had to readjust my mindset. If one can go beyond these obstacles you may just see an intense, poetic look into the relationship of two adult men, father and son.