A parent is a person who should always be by the child's side. The world is very harsh on those people who are brought up by only a mother or a father. They often have an inferiority complex, they feel as if they are not sufficient for others. This problem worsens over time and creates a void. People try to fill this void through their lifetime.
The short film "Father" (2015) directed by Data Pirtskhalava has two main characters: Lado and Nika. They have been growing up without a father for a long time. Five years later, the father knocks on their door, not thinking about how his children will feel when they see him, what his ex-wife will say about him, what reaction each one will have. Nobody knows what is going on in the father's heart when he sits in front of his children and cannot look them in the eyes, he is looking aimlessly here and there smoking a cigarette. He even gives a present to the "kids." Beautifully wrapped in the box the moon and stars that ought to be hung on the wall and shine at night. Perhaps, when they looked at it, they would remember their father.
Initially, Lado looks at the man standing in front of him ironically, then with disappointed eyes and begs him to say something, to explain where he has been for so long, why he left. The man says nothing, just asks not to tell their mother anything and leaves the house. There's still an empty spot in the boys' hearts, but now it's filled with a lot of question marks and chaos. Lado's unspoken words and long accumulated emotions are suffocating altogether. The words he couldn't say to his father are stuck in his throat like a ball. He does not know how to react to the incident. He can't understand whether he should get angry or pity his father.
Unfortunately, the film only shows the lives of the boys and that too briefly. No one knows why their father left, what was going on in his life. He might have had some disease and now he walks with a cane because of that or at least he was in prison. What is the story behind all this? The man appears only in the role of a wrongdoer. Direct aggression goes to him. The story about him is too short and limited to only one sentence – he is a man who left two children and his wife for five years and when he returned he brought only cigarettes and some toys for the "kids." Now, when the son asks what happened, he never replies. He doesn't know where to start. Who knows how much he has to tell or how ashamed he is of his behavior, how hard it was for him to knock on a yet familiar door. It’s interesting what he was waiting for, what he would find behind the door.
Lado is 19 years old. When he needed advice from his father, he found himself alone and had to play the role of a man. He should have been an example for his younger brother, but he himself did not know how to behave properly. His mother worked six days a week and the boy thought of helping her. He took his gun and went to rob cars with his brother. They were caught while stealing the radio of one of the cars. He was afraid, but he could not show his fear to his brother and ran away. When he turned around, he saw a man who was someone's father and husband. The father he never had and shot him. The latter, Makho, was afraid, he thought that a bullet had hit him and his son would become an orphan. Who knows what he thought in a split second, how many memories flashed before his eyes. When he realized that he didn't hurt anything, he got up, shook out his clothes and froze. His son was calling him. For him, the father was the superhero that Lado and Nika never had. He could not understand how to return home in shame. He dragged up his body and went home.
Lado had two choices. He should either take the car radio and let Makho go in shame or he should return what he stole and be an example to his brother. He chose the second one. The man returned as a superhero to little Datuna, the child who had hope in his father. He knew that as long as he was alive, no one could do him any harm. He threatened the boys even with his father.
If a father is not by your side, it doesn’t matter whether he is dead or alive, it doesn't make sense anymore. Lado could do the same thing to Datuna that happened to him. He also felt the pain of fatherlessness and the difficulties he went through, but could not do it to him. He had a chance to take revenge on someone when being embittered, but he could not spare the boy. He knew how painful it was to grow up without a father.
"I will tell my father, he will come, beat you and throw you to the back of beyond" – even we used to scare older boys with such words. We all, who had both parents, counted on our father. Lado had no role model. He had to save himself and overcome all difficulties.
The film is full of pain and melancholy. Despite its chronology, it finds room for the unspoken words of every child raised without a father.
One of the topics of the film is alienation. Although the boys live with their mother, the woman still knows nothing about their nightlife. She might have never found a weapon either, otherwise she would have protested. They still hide things from each other. They cannot tell their mother everything. It’s interesting where the other relatives are. Do they have an uncle to ask for advice? Are they left only with their mother? Is it easier for Nika or Lado to bring back their father? For Nick, presumably. Lado had to provide fatherhood for the boy and put a double burden on his small shoulders. There are three people sitting in the room, but they have nothing in common except biological connection. The father is already a stranger to the boys. They don't know anything about him and therefore, neither the man has any information about his children.
This short film has two different sides. On one side there are Lado and Nika, who grew up without their father, and on the other side there are Datuna and his father. Datuna's father is a superhero. The man who will fight with everyone and overpower if Datuna needs it. For him, Makho is the character about whom people tell bedtime tales.
Nika attached the stars given by his father to the ceiling in the room. Suddenly one of them fell and you would wonder what might be the wish Nika would have thought of at that moment. Getting his father back and knowing him better or starting a new deal, stealing car mirrors?
Everyone has their own place in the heart. People come and go and memories remain. Others sometimes fill the empty space left after their departure. This is not all about parents. Nothing can fill the void left after their departure. They will be choked for the rest of their life by the question: what would their lives have been if their father had not disappeared for five years.
Barbare Kalaijishvili
