Screened as part of NZIFF 2004
Father and Son 2003
Otets i Syn
After the extravagance of Russian Ark, Aleksandr Sokurov returns to the intimate expressionism of his earlier Mother and Son in this plotless, highly aesthetic idealisation of early manhood and a passionate father/son bond. A crewcut young soldier lives with his surprisingly youthful father. The camera dotes on their limber bodies and soulful gazes. An attention-grabbing opening sequence where the near-naked father comforts and caresses his nightmare-ridden son is charged with eroticism. The boy’s mother, the love of his father’s life, died young, and each somehow embodies the absent mother/wife to the other. Maybe the boy’s girlfriend, as pale and beautiful as he, fancies the father. A biblical text accentuates the mythic: ‘A father’s love crucifies; a loving son lets himself be crucified’. On the planks and rooftops outside their Lisbon attic apartment, father and son work out, tussle and dance around each other in a constant pas de deux of separation and reunion. — BG
“As carnal as Caravaggio, and as modern as Merce Cunningham.” — Ian Christie, London Film