My Video Q

The story of the film is simple: at the beginning a man cycles to the sea shore with a little girl. The man hugs the girl goodbye, and sets out to sea in a row boat. The girl leaves. Next, we see the girl riding her bicycle alone to the shore and looking out to the sea. The girl grows up, goes to the shore with her fiancée, then with two children and her husband. Finally, the girl is an old woman, strenuously cycling to the shore. She leaves the bicycle on the beach and starts walking towards the sea. The shoreline has retreated, the old woman walks among the reeds until she finds a boat that has rotted through. The old woman gets on the boat and lies down as if to sleep. Suddenly the old woman gets up, sees something out at sea and starts running towards the open water, at the same time turning back into the little girl she was at the beginning of the film. The little girl runs to the open arms of her father.

The film is full of beautiful pictures drawn with a few colors and strokes and simplified animation. On the other hand, the music was annoying, wistful accordion music again played at the beginning. the film is filled with sadness and sorrow in which we lost a father

The crying seemed to go on forever. It was the crying of twenty years ago, when I heard my father had died. Again I took my bicycle and rode straight ahead, without stopping. I felt it all again: the shortness of breath, tears, wet hair on my face, the squeaking of the bent chain guard, the compulsive need to keep riding and staring at the road ahead, not turning back, hoping that the road would go on forever. But finally I only remembered my father, the big hands of a big man, tobacco smell on a flannel shirt, things he said and his gestures I had already forgotten.

Little by little the crying stopped. I hadn’t really thought of my father during my adult years, and was in no way prepared for the heavy longing I suddenly felt. But Father and Daughter has been with me ever since. Its imagery and mood come to my mind time and again, and the simple beauty of the story always brings me comfort. I can’t really analyze the experience or its reasons. And I don’t want to, because Father and Daughter showed me that there are moments when the right film finds the right viewer and settles in his heart. And now I, too, am waiting for that miracle whenever a new film begins. See the movie Exclusive for friends bloger 

Kari Juusonen
Translation by Maria Koistinen