Father and Son

"Achingly beautiful film proves dreamily seductive but also profoundly disturbing."

BBC Film

"Like a dream within a dream. Its images and emotions are vivid, disquieting and also hermetic…it has an intensity that surpasses understanding…feels, like the films of Tarkovsky or the music of Shostakovich, irreducibly, even confoundingly Russian in its enigmatic soulfulness."

The New York Times

"The cinematography – shafts of ochre light on knick-knacks; damp and distorted dream sequences; outdoor scenes in a misty pink glow – gives the film a rich, sensual shimmer. Sokurov alludes to Christ, Lear and The Prodigal Son, it seems, to replace these tales of sacrifice and punishment with a lush snapshot of fatherly love. More emotional situation than story, the film is a gorgeous, crepuscular dream."

Time Out

"The male-male relationship is political, familial, erotic, philosophical, cosmic, satirical, holy. Often at the same time. This taboo-teasing movie is an event in the history of film sensuality…Sokurov is committed to showing the immanence of human experience."

New York Press

"The photography, by Alexander Burov, and Natalya Kochergina’s art direction cultivate a lot of the film’s mystery…Sokurov uses the ambiguity of the father and son’s relationship to craft a sort of erotic puzzle."

Boston Globe

"Sokurov firmly establishes his film as a spiritual parable; the characters’ every glance and touch seems a cosmic gesture that, coupled with the film’s near-subliminal soundtrack, promises transcendence…Sokurov’s stylistic choices force one to look upon Father and Son as a moving musical canvas, complete with crescendos and cadenzas—characters and motivations, in tandem with the director’s precise camera placements, careen about as if in symphonic liquid space. The result is challenging and liberating cinema of the highest order."

Slant Magazine