Foreign Film Friday

a foreign film review by Chris White
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MY ARCHITECT: A SON'S JOURNEY


Written & Directed by Nathaniel Kahn

MY ARCHITECT is Nathaniel Kahn’s personal journey to forgiveness and reconciliation with his rogue father, one of the 20^th Century’s most brilliant architects.

 Kahn’s film moves along patiently, painstakingly…each frame filled with the grief of a son, mostly unknown to his father, searching desperately to know his dad and, ultimately, to love him. To “hug his buildings.”

 

There is no question that Louis I. Kahn’s work is fascinating, moving, powerful. And it is not really surprising to learn that he died poor and alone...that his life was filled with dysfunctional relationships, poor business decisions, and general self-absorption. It is the all-too-familiar “genius artist’s” tale.

 

But MY ARCHITECT works as meta-Biblical narrative…the lost son seeking his creator father…within his creation. Kahn’s tale resonates more deeply, and the peace he ultimately finds during this journey is more rewarding.

 

(The one-minute scene of Nathaniel Kahn roller-blading at his father’s ethereal Salk Institute courtyard, underscored by Neil Young and Stephen Stills’s “Long May You Run,” is pure cinema…rare for a documentary.)

 

Nathaniel Kahn’s film manages to celebrate his father’s work, damn his paternal failings, and restore his own sense of origin, of family in less than two hours. It is an amazing accomplishment.

2003 \\ Color \\ 116 min.

New Yorker Films

COUNTRIES OF PRODUCTION: Bangladesh, India, USA