Director:
Aleksander Sokurov
Starring:
Andrei Shchetinin
Aleksei Nejmyshev
Aleksandr Razbash
Release: 18 Jun. 04
IMDb
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Father and Son
BY: DAVID PERRY
In what could be the clearest misconception of a film yet
made, Alexander Sokurov, the wonderful Russian auteur finally getting
sizable attention in the states, has attempted to drown accusations of
homoeroticism by saying that his film Father and Son is the story of a
chaste relationship between his two leads. How then does he explain the
reclining bodies, thrust together in seemingly post-coital comfort? When the
film opens, emulating Alain Resnais’ delicate camerawork of his characters’
skin in afterglow in Hiroshima, Mon Amour, there’s no question that these
two men have a closeness that hints at the erotic.
What beautiful images he captures, but the underlying value is in the
distinction between homoerotic and purity. He establishes that the kinship
is close between father and son, likening it to their confines in the
Russian Army, but his attempts to answer the very question that makes Father
and Son such a mesmerizing work is to castrate it of its grandeur. This is
like Ridley Scott making his declaration about Blade Runner’s ending, or
Quentin Tarantino telling everyone what’s in Pulp Fiction’s glowing
briefcase -- the beauty is in the mystery. The hints of gay incest is part
of why the film’s triangle between father, son, and girlfriend is so
dramatically impressive, with Sokurov positioning lusty glances among the
angry discourse.
Posturing the film as a story of masculinity instead of clichéd fey
homosexuality, Sokurov’s evidently wants this to be more of a story about
his country’s Army, its years of atrocious mistakes in the name of Russian
men’s superiority to the West and to Afghanistan. Both views -- the
anti-patriot and the filial inbred -- is commanding in its statements on a
civilization brought to its knees, left to atrophy after the end of
communism. If Sokurov doesn’t want people to think of sex when considering
his protagonists, he’s saying volumes about where his society still sits,
retrogressing back to its pre-Lenin state. He might not see us as the impure
ones thinking these things as we watch his film, but we wouldn’t if he
didn’t make it so clear, even if unintentionally.
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