Mark Reviews Movies: FATHER (2022)

Father, Dekanalog

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | April 14, 2022

At first, the driving force of the plot of Father seems to be hope. In it, a man makes a grueling journey of about 200 miles on foot. His goal is to argue the case that his two children should be returned to him and his wife. His rationale is that the effort will prove beyond any doubt that he genuinely loves and cares about the well-being of his kids.

That's the hopeful push here—that sincerity, honesty, pure emotions, and hard work can solve even the direst of problems. Co-writer/director Srdan Golubović knows that we're used to this kind of tale and want this particular story to be told, in this particular way and with a tone of undefeatable optimism. Everything looks bleak, but Nikola (Goran Bogdan), the eponymous dad, just needs to do what he sets out to do, with the best of intentions and the dogged belief that one person can make real change.

At just about every important moment in Nikola's trek, though, Golubović and co-screenwriter Ognjen Sviličić subvert those good feelings and that hopeful viewpoint. We might want that other story, which seems to be promised once the protagonist takes his first steps, but this is the one we get, because it's the one that humanity has proven time and again to be the truth of the world we've established.

The film opens with Nikola's wife Biljana (Nada Šargin), bringing the couple's two children, Miloš (Muharem Hamzić) and Sanja (Ajla Šantić), through the small town in Serbia where they live. The three arrive at a factory, and Biljana demands that the manager finally give her husband the back pay and severance he has been owed for two years since he was laid off from work. No one responds, even after she threatens to burn herself and her children alive on the spot.

At the end of the desperate one-sided standoff, Biljana ends up in the hospital and the two children are taken by social services. When Nikola learns of his children's fate, he goes to the local social services office looking to bring his kids home.

Instead, the Vasiljević (Boris Isaković), the seemingly by-the-book bureaucrat in charge of the local department, informs Nikola that he needs to make some changes to the house before his children can be returned to him from the foster family with whom they're currently living. After doing his part in that regard, Nikola returns to the office, only to learn that Vasiljević has no intention of returning the children to him. Nikola starts a sit-in protest, but since the official appears to have so many powerful and influential people in his pocket, Nikola decides to hand-deliver an appeal directly to the government minister in charge of the department's headquarters in Belgrade.

From there, Golubović follows Nikola on his cross-country journey, stopping only for sleep, food, to refill his single plastic bottle of water, and to visit a fellow laid-off worker, who now specializes in drafting forms like the one Nikola wants to deliver to the ministry (It's discouraging to consider that the man can make enough money to live in relative comfort from that, and ultimately, it's depressing to think of all of those unseen people in situations similar to Nikola's, given what happens). Things start poorly for the traveler, when he's stopped by the police for walking along the highway and almost ends up with a significant fine for his troubles. The cops, though, take pity on Nikola and drive him to a nearby town, where he'll have to start his walk on a longer, less-straightforward path.

Despite the long stretches of isolation and loneliness on this trek, one of the constants is Nikola's occasional interactions with others, such as that friend and those semi-helpful but not-harmful cops. If we take this premise as one that's suggesting a hopeful view of Nikola's mission, one might consider the basic decency and generosity of these acquaintances, such as a man from town who's a delivery driver, and strangers, such as those cops and others who start to hear about Nikola's journey from the newspapers. The undercurrent of those interactions and gestures isn't as encouraging, though.

For every good thing that happens to Nikola by chance, there's something discouraging or downright sinister beneath it, alongside it, or waiting around the corner. That pattern establishes itself quickly. The delivery driver is transporting migrants, apparently under false pretenses. The cops' charity could hardly be called that, and a gas station attendant, who lets Nikola sleep in a storage room and gives him some food, is later bullied by some guys for no apparent reason. While Nikola is at a hospital recovering from exhaustion, an old man doesn't find hope or resolve in his story, only a warning that, like the old man's own family, Nikola's own will betray or abandon him one day. Then, there's the early encounter Nikola has a stray dog, who keeps him company for a night—only for heartbreak, perpetrated by unseen strangers in the dark, to arrive in the morning.

On the surface, Father is about a man's righteous and determined fight against an unjust system. Righteousness and determination, though, can only get one so far, and in Golubović's calculation, such things are only illusions. The hard truth of the film is that it's not only systems and the officials who run them that are corrupt. The corruption is ever-present, goes as deep as human nature, and is as close as a person's neighbors.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products