The Upcoming
  • Culture
    • Art
    • Cinema & Tv
      • Movie reviews
      • Film festivals
      • Shows
    • Food & Drinks
      • News & Features
      • Restaurant & bar reviews
      • Interviews & Recipes
    • Literature
    • Music
      • Live music
    • Theatre
  • Fashion & Lifestyle
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
  • What’s On
    • Art exhibitions
    • Theatre shows
  • Tickets
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Interviews
  • Competitions
  • Special events
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

CultureMovie reviews

Padre

Padre | Movie review
24 September 2018
Cristiana Ferrauti
Avatar
Cristiana Ferrauti
24 September 2018

Movie and show review

Cristiana Ferrauti

Padre

★★★★★

The possibility of moving freely in terms of form and concept is one of the positive features of small productions. In Padre, Giada Colagrande tackles the difficult and oft-avoided topics of death and afterlife, unburdened by pre-established standards and leaving raw much more of the material that the movie industry would have smoothed and polished for the mass audience. Unfortunately, though, the final result doesn’t leave a mark.

Giulia (Colagrande) mourns the sudden and undefined loss of her father, the artist Giulio Fontana (Franco Battiato). Visited ever more frequently and ever more visibly by the ghost of her parent, the woman traces his late spiritual journey through letters and meditation exercises. Supported by James (Willem Dafoe), a family friend and theatre artist, the protagonist seems to be guided by these apparitions towards an initiation.

The story is divided into seven blocks, as chapters of a conversion. In the director’s own words, the movie was born out of a dream, and has taken shape through a lot of research into the spiritual and supernatural. It is a blurred analysis – a journey – of the bereaved’s emptiness and yearning for a presence that can never return. The answer doesn’t come from a particular faith, nor a philosophy, but from a mixture of Asian mysticism and spiritual doctrines.

Together with the often unconnected visuals, this unsubstantial narrative constitutes most probably the biggest problem of the movie, as the sequences follow like a flux of thoughts and transcendent experiences. The stage piece on which Giulia and James collaborate is also a sort of meta-theatre, vanguard work, which further boosts the vagueness and multiplicity of spiritual inputs, which lack any sense of order.

The atmosphere in which the protagonist is immersed could have been explored further. Marina Abramovic, who interprets Giulia’s mother, gives just another hint of the mystical research of this family, but nothing extra or really supporting the storytelling.

With rather a slow pace, the movie would have benefited from some cuts. Photography director Tommaso Borgstrom, however, has realised some really interesting shots.

The red thread from death to initiation is music, wonderfully written by Franco Battiato and Carlo Guaitoli. Ending with an open final scene, the production leaves us without a clear message or a strong feeling of a journey lived through the screen, and with the idea that the whole piece could have been more engaging if the score would have played a more central part.

★★★★★

Cristiana Ferrauti

Padre does not have a UK release date yet.

Watch the trailer for Padre here:

Related Itemsreview

More in Movie reviews

Body Brokers

★★★★★
Umar Ali
Read More

Mouthpiece

★★★★★
Georgia Howlett
Read More

Sentinelle

★★★★★
Mersa Auda
Read More

The Father

★★★★★
Jonathan Marshall
Read More

Coming 2 America

★★★★★
Musanna Ahmed
Read More

Eye of the Storm

★★★★★
Jessica Wall
Read More

The Dissident

★★★★★
Jessica Wall
Read More

Moxie

★★★★★
Emma Kiely
Read More

Notturno

★★★★★
Mersa Auda
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Movie and show review

Cristiana Ferrauti

Padre

★★★★★

  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • Celebrate International Women’s Day with a Bombay Sapphire Cocktails & Create masterclass
    Food & Drinks
  • Kings of Leon – When You See Yourself
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • Limbo
    ★★★★★
    Berlinale
  • Women in film introduce favourite female-directed features for new BFI series from 8th March
    Cinema & Tv
  • Delectible drinks that would make the perfect Mother’s Day gift
    Food & Drinks
  • Body Brokers
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Mouthpiece
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Sentinelle
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Jesus Egon Christ (Jesus Egon Christus)
    ★★★★★
    Berlinale
  • Jesus Egon Christ: An interview with directors David and Saša Vajda
    Berlinale
  • Vicious Fun
    ★★★★★
    Glasgow
  • Berlinale 2021 winners: The full list
    Berlinale
  • WandaVision
    ★★★★★
    disney
  • Coming 2 America
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Kings of Leon – When You See Yourself
    ★★★★★
    Album review
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

Anchor and Hope (Tierra Firme) | Movie review
Go on a treasure hunt through London’s libraries in immersive show The Paper Traveller