I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

From a plot and movement standpoint, this movie was terrible. I found myself looking at the clock in theater hoping it would end and relieved after 80 long minutes that it mercifully did. Basically, five characters appear in the movie, A Son & Father, son's girl friend, and two male characters of the son's age who appear and then disappear without context or explanation. The movie and scenes seemed to suggest homo-eroticism, but nothing ever actually happened to reveal this one way or another. There were a couple of brilliant scenes. At the beginning of the movie, the son's girl friend shows up at a window outside his room and they engage in an odd conversation. The photography and acting lent an incredible seductiveness to the interaction between the two, ending with her admitting to having another man who was "older". End of that story.

Among all the films I've ever seen, Sokurov's go deepest into my heart.One has to prepare some motivation, not expectation, for his films since very often his works offer you things much more abstract than expectations. While willingly sacrificing dialogue as the most important means of information, he guides you into the circumstances by recreating the interactive association with camera, letting you feel his neverland of eternal humanity.Abstruse as it is, "Father and Son" is a rare curiosa out of simplicity and aesthetics, exquisite yet resplendent.With the early death of the mother, the father and the son supported each other in a way so intimate and absolute that they were sometimes like brothers or even lovers. The son was a symbol of his mother to the father. The father was the whole world to the son. Life for them was tranquil in a isolated world full of love. Poverty, romance, friendship, truth, communication...all the outside forces were reduced to setoffs when touching the edge of their territory.The plot is simple. The furnishings are as sparse as in a stage play. All aspects are deliberately limited by Sokurov. Obviously he wanted no distraction for the magic visual expression I already got obsessed with in "Mother and Son".The scenes at home are mostly still while the outdoor images are distorted. The dimly twilights through out the film hardly suggest any time but drown me in a illusion. The ancient dressing style of the son's girlfriend even tear up time and space much wider. There is no alternation of days and nights. There are only words and emotions. It's fairytale. It's fantasized. And Sokurov never wanted to convince us otherwise.Though having watched it twice, I still cannot make out certain words are said by which one of them. The father and the son had so similar voices especially in impatient dialogues. That didn't really matter since most lines could actually be exchanged at all.The father smiled constantly in the film. While his smile disturbed some people who referred it to awkward acting, it carried me into a trance where I thought: "provided with a son to whom I gave so much love suddenly realized the two of us had to be parted, how many substantial reactions would I give in front of his frustration?" The father's smile was the best compromise between his overwhelming love and his son's realistic future. Fortunately, the smile got more and more natural and confident. In the end, they still achieved an fairytale ending.Putting things to a certain extreme is to look better into their realistic forms. The love between the father and son was far beyond our mundane definition for this word. That's why we feel they were like brothers or lovers at one time or another. We can't even generalize it.I don't know what's the big idea of others who hate this film. Is it just because it's boring and recondite or is it because they cannot accept a kind of love which is so complicated, heavenly and absolute? I rather believe the answer is the former one, otherwise it's just so disappointing.As Sokurov said, "In a cruel world, nothing can be accepted but a homo-erotic view." He said it in an interview when someone related this film to a homo-erotic interpretation. I don't think he has any problem with homosexuality and I don't think he particularly meant "this view" in a universal way. I think he was just doubting people's imagination and courage.In an uninspiring world, nothing extreme or heavenly can be accepted but a self-satisfying view. Those who don't like this film just don't dare to.

The second film in the trilogy director Alexander Sokurov (Russian Ark) began with Mother and Son (1996) focuses on the obsessive, intimate love between a youthful father and his teenage son. They play sport and tousle together, confide in and are everything to each other – but now the son is close to adulthood, it's time to separate.Apparently Sokurov intended to show that the ambivalence of their lover-like relationship is due to the father's unresolved feelings for his dead wife, but the film is not entirely successful in communicating that. Their closeness inspires jealousy in the son's girlfriend, a neighbour and a visitor, yet the homo eroticism in Father and Son is not just between them, but in the way the camera views other men, particularly soldiers. Although this allegedly unintentional subtext could offend, it does not, due to the hyper-real, mythic tone. The slow pace of the film is offset by a pervasive, abstract sensuality, emphasised by Alexander Burov's beautiful cinematography. Whispering kettles and dripping taps form an industrial ambiance that helps to slow time down and frame the background – a dark quiet house that is as insular as this familial relationship.Although Father and Son will frustrate those seeking a more plot-driven film, it is memorable. The indefinable closeness between the two men is never threatening. It merely emphasises the similarity between what philosopher CS Lewis described as the Four Loves – storage (familial love), love between friends (philia), eros (sexual love) and agape (spiritual love).***/***** stars.

This film was a wonderful experience! I didn't understand everything that was going on but it is so beautifully filmed with such a poetic and touching atmosphere that I've just let myself go with the flow and enjoyed every moment of it. This is mainly around the relationship between a father and his son. They seem very close, and they seem to have shared a lot in the past. Although much is unsaid and you have to imagine or feel it, which is great.Further more it is very homo-erotic : Sokurov has filmed a father and his son but it could as well have been two lovers. Not that there is any incest going on but you can really feel their emotional and physical closeness.