The Father

Majid Majidi's film about the conflict between a boy and his stepfather. After his father's death, Mehrollah went south to a distant city to work and support his family. When he comes back to the village with his earnings and his gifts, he finds things have changed: his mother has remarried, and her new husband is a gendarme. The boy does not accept it. He saw himself as the one responsible for the family and finds on his return that his place has been taken. His resistance becomes first silence, then open defiance. The final section leaves the two of them alone in the desert, and the question is no longer who is right but who survives. Children are always at the centre of Majidi's cinema, but this one is not endearing; he is angry, stubborn, and stubborn in the places where he is wrong. The film does not try to correct him. The photography rests on natural light and location; the southern Iranian landscape is part of the story. A strong example for anyone who likes Iranian cinema and dramas centred on children. For anyone looking for an emotionally comfortable film, the narrative runs hard and reconciliation does not come easily.