[critical] like FATHER, like SON

With like FATHER, like SON, the japanese director Hirokazu Kore-Eda renews with themes dear to his heart as family connections, is already discussed in the beautiful NOBODY KNOWS (2004) and STILL WALKING (2009). This time, it still treats blood ties, but more specifically, the paternal bond. The story is reminiscent of the one in the film “Life is a long quiet river”, but more that an exchange of infants, like FATHER, like SON tells the story of the discovery of the role of the father in a man for whom career success was up before the family, and hindered by a pattern of family rigid and demanding that his son Keita who – it will be understood – is in fact not his biological son, is the first to suffer the consequences.

What are the subsequent meetings with the other couple and his “real” son Ruysei, “very together” and raised in a liberal spirit, as well as the vision of that other father, Yudai, small shopkeeper mechanic at times, the antithesis of its design austere of fatherhood, that will reposition him in his role of father. This test will gradually undermine its certainties, and dismantle the arsenal of quasi-military as he has hitherto imposed on Keita (piano lessons, private school, lesson of keeping at the table, etc.). On the other side of the mirror lives the other family, so loving that she has three children, and prompt to the people loosen up in less than two shots of a kite, splash, and the list goes on… We also understand that the re-birth as the father of Ryota goes through his confrontation with his own father : for evidence of the scenes pretty cold where we feel the weight of the yoke family.

The film also raised a question on the strength of the ties of blood and grows to wonder if the attachment or love devoid of these links is sufficient to create a bond strong enough to be definitive.

As always, Hirokazu Kore-Eda explores its characters in their intimacy, as if he placed his camera in the corner of an apartment until things happen, they happen or don’t happen elsewhere… thus, We see Ryota to sleep, to work, to go home, but also Keita play, the other family, following the same treatment. The meeting of the two families is also an excuse to let things be themselves, without forcing (a break in a playground for example). While the parents are recovering discreetly in question (including their status as a good parent or a good mother) and what their emotions are rather used (Ryota seems sometimes frozen or expressionless), the feelings and reactions of children are more picked up on the spot, spontaneously, giving rise to a few smiles and the emotion in the viewer. Despite this apparent transparency of the emotions in Ryota, we understand in spite of everything easily the issue lived in the camp and parental – and of course children – and the dramatic tension of the film, even if it woven into the filigree, remains very strong and poignant.

The delicacy of the feelings in Hirokazu Kore-Eda is once again here greatly demonstrated.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

[rating:8/10]

Ryoata, an architect obsessed with professional success, shape with his young wife and their 6 year old son an ideal family. All its bearings were shattered when the maternity hospital where was born their child tells them that two infants were exchanged at birth : the boy he has raised is not his own, and their biological son has grown up in an environment that is more modest…

• Original title : Soshite chichi ni naru

• Achievement : Hirokazu Kore-Eda

• Screenplay : Hirokazu Kore-Eda

• Main actors : Masaharu Kukuyama, Machiko Ono, Lily Franky, Yoko Maki, Keita Ninomiya, Shogen Hwang, Jun Fubuki

• Country of origin : Japan

• Output : 25 December 2013

• Duration : 2 hours

• Distributor : The Covenant

• Trailer :

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