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Father and Son

EMAILPRINTWellspring Media

Father and Son reviews
64
8.1 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 17 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 7 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Drama  |  Foreign

Written by: Sergei Potepalov

Directed by: Aleksandr Sokurov

Release Date:
Theatrical: June 18, 2004
DVD: October 26, 2004

Running Time: 97 minutes, Color

Origin: Russia / Germany / Italy / Netherlands

Language(s): Russian (with English subtitles)

Summary

RATING: Not Rated

Starring Andrei Shchetinin, Aleksei Nejmyshev, and Aleksandr Razbash

Father and Son explores the intricate dynamics of familial relations and the profound, ambiguous nature of love and loss between inextricably linked souls. (Wellspring Media)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Like most of Sokurov's movies, this oblique parable is mysterious, elliptical, irresistible.

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80

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Less a story than a situation, the film contends with a difficult transitional period in the lives of its title characters, who face the growing necessity of getting some distance from each other.

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80

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Like a dream within a dream. Its images and emotions are vivid, disquieting and also hermetic, and while it may frustrate your desire for clear storytelling and psychological transparency, it has an intensity that surpasses understanding.

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80

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

If the setting is claustrophobic, it's also bracingly beautiful, a contradiction that is every bit in keeping with Sokurov's preference for ambiguity over clarity.

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75

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

Passes by like a dream.

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75

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Where a lesser movie from a lesser director might sink into its own ponderousness, Sokurov uses the ambiguity of the father and son's relationship to craft a sort of erotic puzzle.

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75

New York Post V.A. Musetto

By the time the final shot arrives -- a rooftop panorama in the falling snow -- we don't know much about any of the people we've just encountered. But we have been treated to a feast for the eyes.

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70

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

The result can be--sometimes is--tedium; but, whether or not the work succeeds as Sokurov intended, it is an adventurous director's probe of cinema possibilities.

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70

LA Weekly Walter Chaw

For Sokurov, the relationship between a father and a son surpasses physical, even human intimacy -- it’s something approaching the sacred.

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70

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

Nothing much happens by way of plot in the course of Father and Son, but it offers a fresh and often startling vision of one of the most fundamental relationships between human beings.

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70

TV Guide Ken Fox

Hypnotic film.

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70

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Borders on the risible but, because Sokurov is Sokurov, this exalted, wacky scenario--which uses Lisbon as an imaginary Russian seaport--is amazingly staged, inventively edited, and rich in audio layering, with camera placements that sometimes verge on the Brakhagian.

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60

Empire David Parkinson

Sokurov's use of space, religious symbolism and raw emotion compensate for any sense of exclusion.

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50

The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck

The film should please his (Sokurov's) fans even while proving a frustrating, tedious experience for most art house audiences.

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42

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Sokurov's new companion piece (to "Mother and Son"), has the tedium without the trance.

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30

Variety Deborah Young

Irritatingly devoid of irony, the film has an unintentional but unmistakable homoerotic subtext.

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30

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Here was my question for most of this movie: Wha-? I was clueless. Did not understand. Count me among the stupid.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 8.1 (out of 10) based on 7 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Jim R. gave it a10:
Once seen, I could not get this film out of my mind. So moving, I took a day off of work in order to see it again before its much-too-short run ended. A New York Times reviewer described it best: "[I]t has an intensity that surpasses understanding." The cinematography is gorgeous, the story is deeply moving, the characters are much more human than most Americans care to admit. Immediately shooting to the top of my list, I had to e-mail and thank Aleksandr Sokurov personally for his wonderful film... and happily received a reply.

Krysha A. gave it a10:
The coldness of this culture causes to perceive the warmth of this relationship (in flax nonetheless) between father and a son as homoerothic - nothing further from the truth. We all long for such intimacy and to have it with a parent and then to fly away is an ultimate nurtuing experience. Rarely we will get it here in US Maybe after exctasy...

victor s gave it a6:
If Sokurov can't see that the flagrantly incestuous quality of his film, then I would say he requires a lot of therapy. I hope he doesn't have children. Other than flaunting the dubious nature of the director's low level of self-awareness, this film has a disturbing, depressing but powerful impact on the psyche. It gets marks for it's Freudian foray into the director's unconscious.

Brad L. gave it a 10:
Thouroughly entrancing and enigamtic. This will be difficult for the more jaundiced viewer who might be unable to view it through a lense of myth and parable.

Andrew L. C. gave it a 10:
Reminds me, in a different way of course, of me and my father. I disagree with some of the reviews, where there are accusations and projections of "homosexuality." I see absolutely no elements of such. However, I would be bringing a different cultural viewpoint and perspective to the table as opposed to some "Westerners" regarding affection between a father and his child.

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