Father and Son

STONE is an odd chat between two guys. MOTHER AND SON is about a dying mother so abstracted as to be little more than a maternal symbol. In this, she has already been killed off so as to create a domestic zone composed of muscular male bodies and idealised masculine and paternal relationships. Is Sokurov completely uninterested in women? If so, it seems like an artistic limitation. Nevertheless, this possesses some virtues, for those willing to buy into its concerns. Maybe it's a Russia thing.

The second installment in a proposed trilogy of familial relations, Sokurov creates another dreamlike, hermetically sealed world that feels completely at odds with the rest of cinema. It is perhaps overly mannered at times, and the time bound timelessness of the spell is broken by the sudden intrusion of electronic music, but F+S is ultimately a moving, deeply felt exploration of male intimacy, separation anxiety and the ties that bind bathed in luminous shades of warm painterly light.

"Sokurov firmly establishes his film as a spiritual parable; the characters' every glance and touch seems a cosmic gesture..." - Keith Uhlich