The
Russians are Coming! THE FATHER at Upstate Films
by Jay Blotcher
...The event is co-sponsored by The Hudson Valley Programmers
Group and The Hudson Valley Film Commission. While the connection
to these groups is puzzling—the film was not shot locally—any
stray objections will be whisked away by the tear-jerking
finale.
The Father—known as Otets in Russia—radiates
the pedigree of a prestige project. It is adapted from a short
story by Andrei Platonov, and takes place in the days after
World War II, when all of Russia was torn between celebrating
the crushing of Hitler’s Nazis on the Eastern front
and mourning the way of life that was subsumed by the fighting.
From the start, The Father revisits a world still reeling
from the ravages of war, forcing the viewer to reexamine its
wounds that have never fully healed. Everywhere, scarred and
maimed people walk the streets, looking for someone who will
remember their faces, or simply begging from passersby to
stay alive.
Officer Alex Ivanov (Guskov) has a chest full of medals
but he, too, has been emotionally devastated by a war that
has turned reason on its head. Evidence? While a wife and
two children await him back home, he has taken up with a female
soldier and somehow rationalizes the dalliance as the only
response to an uncertain future and possible premature death
in battle. The film opens as the two say goodbye, dismissing
the tenderness they once shared and reverting back to their
status as an officer and a low-ranking soldier. Ivanov now
begins the long trip home to his family, realizing the journey
is as far geographically as it exists in a mind still entrenched
in battle.
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