The eternal conflict of fathers and children Father and Son (1994) won the David Donatello Award for Best Director and Best Cinematography. The drama raises at all times an extremely relevant topic - the problems of fathers and children. The image of a friendly and numerous Italian family is broken into small fragments. This story takes place in Genoa, where in the 60s Corrado (Michele Placido), a southerner of 50 years, came to work in a large enterprise. He is currently a night caretaker in the port and lives with his second wife, Angela, with whom he has a daughter, Anna. His eldest son Gabriele (Stefano Dionysi) returns from military service with no prospects ahead. The father arranges him to the factory, but after working on the forklift no more than a couple of shifts, the son will be fired. The guy does not try to cope with his temper and hatred for the work that, according to his father, he has to do in the factory. The father, who worked so hard to get his son a job, does not understand the ease with which Gabriele relates to what happened. There is a growing misunderstanding between father and son, creating family conflicts. Gabriele is intoxicated with freedom, doing nothing until he realizes, with Angela’s help, that it is unworthy to sit on his father’s neck. Then he quickly finds a way to make money, and the fact that this method is criminal, he does not care. He steals cars and ends up in jail. The father to the depths of his soul experiences the drama of his son.
The fate of the guy goes downhill with the speed with which he used to race his motorcycle through the streets of the city. He doesn’t care what happens to him tomorrow. He is gnawed by a sense of loneliness, and there is no one who can comfort and share his experiences with him. In fact, this is Gabriele’s delusion: in his maximalism, he does not notice his father’s love, Angela’s care, or Chiara’s love. In the game library, Gabriele meets Valeria, with whom she makes a strange connection. Gabrielle needs the girl more than she needs him. Valeria does not hide her indifference to him, sometimes even emphasizes it, as in the case of the “ex” she met accidentally at the club. Gabriele is ready to do anything for her and sees in her the salvation of her own future, oddly enough, because Valeria herself is a “roll-field”. The girl already has a plan for the next adventure: she is going to leave Genoa, where she is cramped, for America and offers Gabriele to follow her. But the boy does not have the money for such a trip. Valeria drives the guy into a corner: either they leave together or she goes alone. Gabriele is desperate, he does not want to give up, and decides to rob his father’s house, steal his mother’s jewelry stored in the apartment, but Corrado is as always unexpected and on time.
A father and son are locked in a fight, and Gabriele rushes to the door to leave forever, leaving his father never to see him again. Corrado then resorts to a last resort to stop him - firing a pistol. Gabriele pulls down on the floor and begins to weep in amazement, releasing all the anger that had devoured him, and finally realizing that his father was driven to shoot. The film, built on a simple conflict between parents and children, almost all consists of optical metaphors: ships, urban traffic, trains, serving as the plot of the plot - symbols of movement and the desire to break out of borders. From the first shots, together with Gabriele, you plunge into the cramped, as if closed world of the city, and the sixth largest in the country of Genoa seems a dull swamp. Before he gets home, Gabriele wants to leave. But isn’t that what Corrado’s dream is when he warmly recalls his past life in the south, where he had to move for a completely different life? And Gabriele's motorcycle is also a symbol. It is a symbol of freedom, which for him is the only important thing in life. You understand this by looking at the zeal with which the guy gets rid of his military uniform, and how much he looks forward to meeting his motorcycle, preferring to see it before his father.
The factory is also a symbol. A symbol of power. Gabriele, with his love of freedom, simply cannot physically become one of her countless voiceless machines: "This factory is shit with shitty people." And how sad and terrifying she looks from the windows of Corrado's apartment! And Gabriele, in search of freedom, finds herself in the company of Valeria. She has a perfect life, no home, no family and no rules. Naturally, his desire to be with her, to imitate her, but in reality there is nothing in common between them except the fate of losing a loved one in early childhood and remaining disliked children.
Conflict breaks out suddenly and not out of nowhere. Who is the instigator of the conflict? At first glance, it's hot-tempered, completely unbrake Gabriele, but no - it's Corrado, so right, risk-averse, living by the rules. Whose fault is it that Gabriele is unhappy - is it not a father who is able to love his son only if he fully corresponds to his ideas about a good son?
Father and Son is about how important it is to love a person as he is, how important it is to tell him about it as often as possible, if you do not dare to hug and caress your own son, even if he is already grown up. Angela, unlike Corrado, sees Gabriel as a child: "He's still a boy and needs you," she tells her husband, urging him to visit his son in prison, but it's impossible for his father. It seems that he is unable to forgive his son that such a misfortune broke into his right life. And even more resentful is the fact that Gabriele is not like him. In fact, they are the same – father and son. The only difference between them is Gabriele’s freedom.