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Father and Son

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 17 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 6 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
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
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)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Russian Ark
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
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...
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Like most of Sokurov's movies, this oblique parable is mysterious, elliptical, irresistible.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Walter Chaw
For Sokurov, the relationship between a father and a son surpasses physical, even human intimacy -- its something approaching the sacred.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Empire David Parkinson
Sokurov's use of space, religious symbolism and raw emotion compensate for any sense of exclusion.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Sokurov's new companion piece (to "Mother and Son"), has the tedium without the trance.
Read Full Review >Variety Deborah Young
Irritatingly devoid of irony, the film has an unintentional but unmistakable homoerotic subtext.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.8 (out of 10) based on 6 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.
