Dad I Love You: 4 Films for All Father Figures | Cinemaworld
A month after Mother’s Day comes Father’s Day, a celebration of all the dads that form the sturdy base of our lives, brighten our childhoods, and remain the unshakable support that we continue to return to far into adulthood.
All across the world, fathers come in different forms—from the solemn to the adventurous, the strict-teacher to the conspirator of all our mischiefs. On this special occasion, CinemaWorld brings to you four films that spotlight the colourful world of fathers, all the way from Asia to Europe and beyond.
1. Being Mortal (2020)
China
Chinese director Liu Ze debuts with the documentary-style feature Being Mortal, a stylistically unpolished portrait of an ordinary family dealing with a father’s Alzheimer’s.
The film captures the experience of memory through the melding of space and time. When Xia Tian’s father’s struggle with Alzheimer’s worsens, the young woman returns to her quiet hometown to care for him alongside her aging mother. However, her care proves futile as his condition continues to deteriorate, and all Xia Tian can do is wait for the inevitable end to come.
Nominated for Best Film at the Sao Paulo International Film Festival 2020, Liu Ze’s unfiltered yet compassionate gaze at the unyielding disease is one that is much needed as dementia becomes increasingly prominent across aging societies in Asia.
2. Behind The Mountains (2023)
Tunisia, Belgium, France
Crazy dads who think they can fly—or can they? This fantasy-drama by Tunisian director Mohamed Ben Attia begins with Rafik, a desperate man seeking freedom after four years of imprisonment.
However, the world outside feels just as small and mundane as his prison cell, where societal rules and conventions continue to stifle him. In a fierce rejection of worldly shackles, Rafik develops an extraordinary theory: he believes he can fly. To convince the world—and especially his young son, Yassine—of his newfound abilities, he takes the boy out of school and up the mountains.
3. Our Children (2012)
Belgium, France
A highly decorated standout of world cinema, Our Children is a tense exploration of the suffocating nature of controlling in-laws.
Newlyweds Murielle and Mounir should have a promising future as they welcome four children into the world. Instead, they find themselves caught in the orbit of Mounir’s wealthy adoptive father, Doctor Pinget. Bound by a sense of toxic filial piety, Mounir is unable to draw a line between his devotion to the doctor and his duty to his wife. As the environment grows increasingly oppressive, Mounir faces a harrowing choice: remain in the gilded cage his father built, or break free to save his family.
4. Alpha. (2024)
Netherlands, Slovenia, Switzerland
In a darker turn on the theme of fatherhood, Alpha. explores a toxic father-son relationship where hypermasculinity is pitted against a greater force: Mother Nature itself.
Following his mother’s death, Rein escapes his overbearing father, Gijs, and moves to a quiet village in the Alps to work as a snowboard instructor. His peace is short-lived, however, when Gijs arrives for a surprise visit. Much to Rein’s distaste, his father immediately takes center stage on a backcountry ski tour with Rein’s friends, charming the group and flirting with Rein’s girlfriend, Laura.
Driven to his breaking point, Rein drags his father away from the group to continue their hike alone. What begins as a volatile power struggle between father and son is juxtaposed against the unforgiving grandeur of the mountains, which loom over them as communication—and the terrain—begins to fracture.
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