Continuing to think about mother-child relationships, one of the main themes of fiction (and non-fiction) in recent years, paternity research Both in cinema and literature. As with recent stories about relationships between mothers and children (especially mothers and daughters), what is interesting is not the multitude of proposals on the subject, but the variety of perspectives approached on the subject. A number of studies that stand out overlap in offering approaches to parent-child relationships ranging from the unconventional to the radical and risky. It should be clarified that these are not movies or books in which an old and mistaken idea of motherhood is replaced by fatherhood, and not about men taking on roles traditionally attributed to mother: “Three singles and a bottle” (1985) outdated. In a much more dramatic tone, there could have been an existing ‘mainstream’ equivalent of that film. ‘be a father’ (Paul Weitz, 2021), where Kevin Hart is raising his daughter alone, and that’s something else: There’s an obvious escape from the “dad who has to play mom and hallucinates” premise.
These timed offerings are down to the bone, asking tough questions, explaining complex scenarios and revealing new ones, and she’s not afraid to dive into the weird garden. It is clear that there are great exceptions in history, that the authors of these books and films were not the first to examine paternity patterns, but it is important that many of them are coincidences. proposals that redefine the father and they break with the most traditional and schematic visions.
paternal legacy
opens on friday “After the Sun” by Charlotte Wells Paul Mescal plays a young father who spends a summer with his 11-year-old daughter. In a proposal to Sofia Coppola’s ‘Somewhere’ (2010), another film about the father-daughter relationship in which she shares her autobiographical essence and formal dialogues, Wells talks about something as difficult as constructing a father out of absence, out of sentimentality. and visual memory. Additionally, he talks about heredity in a very encouraging way. If there are many new stories dealing with intergenerational transmission between women in the same family, ‘Afterun’ opens a new door: What we inherited from our father Specifically, what have we inherited from the absent father? What do we not know about him? From his legend? Because not every absence is as tragic as in ‘Aftersun’, but it’s all absence.
idea paternal legacy as something complex, it is also present in new novels set in other ways. Mariana Enriquez and Selva Almada. deals with the latter ‘Not a river’ (and in the entire ‘human trilogy’ completing ‘Sweeping Wind’ and ‘Brickmakers’) paternal legacy as something that weighs, conditions and sustains a patriarchal structure. In a genre proposal, Mariana Enriquez also ‘The night belongs to us’Especially in the first episode (a father and son’s journey), the darkness and audacity of the parent-child bond is as delicate as the fine line between protecting and harming. Here’s another proposal that takes the line between care and injury and further limits it (or makes it sound like a realistic movie): ‘I have dreams of electricity’, by Costa Rican Valentina Muriel. The film, which is scheduled to be released in Spain in February, is immoral, keeping the human complexity at the forefront, revealing the both loving and impossible relationship between a teenager and a violent father. The same theme was glorified to the point of horror, and in a fantastical proposition, ‘Annette’ father-daughter relationship (2021), a musical by Leos Carax.
There is more than one parent
Some of the riskiest expressions of parenting start with the exception and put reality on hold. Examples of this are Santiago Mitre’s “Our role”, “Annette”, “Titane” (2021) or “Little flower” (2022). Julia Ducournau, the character of Via Vincent Lindon offers ‘Titan’A film tied to discourses on the body and transformation, a fragmented, mutant parenting that can adapt to anything rather than deny itself. And ‘little flower’In a (fantastic) black comedy that premiered last week, a father relieves his stress by killing and finishing his neighbor.
However, there are also offers that have appeared recently. more realistic views on parenting, with more accessible stories and more recognizable landscapes. These are works that are very much tied to the present, even if they travel to another era. Clear examples would be Isaac Rosa’s ‘Lugar Seguro’, Miqui Otero’s ‘Simón’, Fernando Navarro’s ‘All that matters is in songs’ or Sara Mesa’s ‘Family’ novels. about different books but they all think of dad. Another novel to focus on is the ‘Chilean Poet’, which embraces Alejandro Zambra’s stepfather figure and expands the spectrum of “being a father today” by eliminating all negative connotations.