For anyone who has grown up – which includes all of us of course – how we view our parents often shifts over that time from child to adult. The recollections of memories about them, our shared experiences with them and who they were change as we ourselves do. Our perceptions of childhood memories begin to take shape and reshape based on our ever growing knowledge of the world, sometimes prompting both conversations with and reflections on and with them. Without too much detail, who I thought my parents were as a kid and who they are turned out to be as an adult have shifted dramatically, the revelations altering my relationships with both of them for better and for worse and sparking discourse about their triumphs, failures, successes and mistakes.
This isn’t profound in and of itself as these kinds of introspections are pretty common even if they aren’t drastic, but recognizing these experiences in my own life allow “My Father’s Shadow” to resonate with me deeply in ways I never thought cinema could. An achingly beautiful portrait of a city in turmoil and longing to know a father who almost exists in the wind, the film is a mesmerizing memory painted in fractured recall and childhood understanding. Akinola Davies crafts an impeccable semi-autobiographical vision that possesses expert cinematic verisimilitude and feels alive with decades of veteran savoy from a directorial debut. Two common themes have been ever present in film this year; through the eyes of a child and knockout first features. “My Father’s Shadow” contains both and sits atop the mountain of many other successful outings in the same vein.
This may very well be a masterpiece, transforming a simple story of two brothers spending a day with their often absent father as he takes them to the city of Lagos to recover backpay from his salary at a factory. Brothers Remi (Chibuike Marvellous Egbo) and Akin (Godwin Egbo) reside in a village with their mother and their father Folarin (an astounding Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù) spends most of his time in the far away city of Lagos working to provide for his family. As if by a wish on the wind, Folarin appears in his room and decides to take the boys with him to Lagos to recover his money, and it begins to recount that one day experience through the children’s perspective. There is a palpable tension of a city on edge, the calm before a storm of unrest juxtaposed against the mundanity of everyday life and a child untouched by the corruption and violence surrounding them. Davies resists the urge to errupt with violence at every corner or lean heavily into manufactured moments of confrontation.
Instead, trucks of soldiers pass by slowly and are held with a lingering glance over the father and sons, signaling an explosion of civil unrest and the unease of military occupation just around the corner but never telling us when. This film does this consistently, keeping the audience on pins and needles without ever having to depart from its core of children finally spending time with a father they barely know and remembering their time with dreamlike accuracy. Lagos is displayed with a poetic vibrancy that captures a bustling city on the verge of change, painting each frame with rarely seen beauty and authenticity. Lagos feels alive and ready to burst at the same time, and Davies exquisitely surrounds his subjects with this kind of kinetic energy all while keeping the larger, more dangerous picture hidden from the children. Even when things start to make sense to the boys they never really grasp what is happening, and their father – clearly suffering and welling with deep emotions buried under cracking masculinity – works to provide a shield over them.
What Davies crafts here is nothing short of masterful, with “My Father’s Shadow” channeling all of the strengths of these kinds of stories (like “Aftersun” for boys but better in my opinion) and delivering a deeply layered, complex personal story that captures both time and space of country, city, home, father, mother, and brother. Our parents rarely turn out to be who we thought, and often times are found to be just trying their best without a roadmap of how to do any of it right. That’s okay, and Davies reminds us that it’s healthy to reflect on those memories and put back the pieces of childhood experiences that made us. Add to that a political unrest that reshaped all of Nigeria and exposed the corrupt system its people were forced to endure and you’ve got something truly special.
I was blown away by how affecting “My Father’s Shadow” turned out to be, and how stirred my soul was after watching. Sure, it requires patience, but it so beautifully crafted and imbued with such layered depth you should feel rewarded in the end. “My Father’s Shadow” is a profound piece of cinema, a wondrous triumph and one of the best films of the year.
Now if you’ll excuse me I need to go hug my dad and tell him I love him.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Stars
“My Father’s Shadow” had its World Premiere at Cannes and North American Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). It was acquired by Mubi and currently has no official release date.
