‘The Father’ Is a Metaphor for Human Suffering Today; A Film That Will Not Become a Masterpiece

The first session of “Screenplay Era,” featuring Mahmoud Arbabi, Farhad Tohidi and Saeed Ghotbizadeh, was held with a critique and review of the film “The Father.”

According to Ambassador Arjan, citing Khana Cinema's public relations, the first meeting of "Screenplay Era" was held last Sunday, October 19, with the presence of Mahmoud Arbabi, Farhad Tawhidi and Saeed Qutbizadeh, by Screenplay Bank in cooperation with Khana Cinema.

The movie "Father" directed by Florian Zeller was screened at Saif Elah Dad Khane cinema hall and after the screening of the movie, Mahmoud Arbabi, head of Screenplay Bank, said: "Screenplay Bank has been formed for many years by the Screenwriters Association, and we decided to have cultural programs for it, and today we started the first screenplay evening meeting."

He said about the film: All the narration of the film takes place from the father's side and he wants to escape from a challenging situation, but as it goes on, he sinks more and more. The film tells the story of Anthony Hopkins, who finally accepts the failure of the effort, which is natural because his dementia is mostly a delusion.

The structure is formed within the narrative

Further, Farhad Tawhidi also stated: This script written by Zeller is a play that has 2 other counterparts. The play "Mother", "Father" and "Son" were staged and "Father" and "Son" became a movie.

Stating that chronological sequence is important in narration, but cinema theorists do not believe in it, he said: Narration is an organized description of events and it should be defined in such a way that it has the greatest effect and pleasure on the audience in terms of aesthetics. In fact, it can be said that narration is the intermediary between the audience and the narration.

Tawhidi explained about the difference between structure and narrative: structure means putting each other aside, but narrative is a little bigger. The structure within the narrative is formed and proceeds in the original screenplay based on revelation.

Cinema is more the heir of literature than theater

Saeed Qutbizadeh, a film critic, pointed out that according to the Aristotelian division, the determination of the story depends on the determination of the time, place, and subject, and stated: Zeller in the play "Father" with these three principles in mind, has interfered in each of them, which at first glance disrupts the audience's connection with the story. That is, the time, place, and topic in this film are inconsistent with the usual routine and general definition, and this issue is the source of the work's ambiguities.

He continued: "Father" is an ambitious work in my opinion, but for several reasons it is not a great experience and a masterpiece. First, decades after Buñuel's late films, presenting a realistic portrayal of a sick and decrepit mentality is not a step forward in cinema. The second reason refers to the director's delight in throwing knots in the narrative that makes the audience's relationship with his film look like the effort of someone who is solving an equation or solving a table or putting together a puzzle. It is only after passing through the difficulties of the text that the audience stops at the zero point.

Stating that cinema is more the heir of literature than theater, Qotbizadeh said: One of the things that cinema borrows from literature is playing with the angle of view in fictional and non-fictional narration. In the play, except for exceptions such as Beckett and UNESCO, due to the limitation of the stage and the key need for dialogue, the hand of the playwright is not so open for this work, but literature is a wide field for these tricks.

In the end, this critic stated: The chronicle of a fantasizing, sick and delusional mind is basically interesting and fascinating. We must pay attention not to consider forgetfulness in this film as just a complication and to think about its metaphorical aspects as well. If we see forgetfulness in the movie "Father" not just as a complication, but as a metaphor for the suffering of today's human beings, loneliness and the breaking of emotional ties, then the movie will be a mirror in front of us.

At the end of this meeting, the attendees raised their questions about the script of the movie "Father".