Okay, I cried like a broken-hearted teenager during this film, and while regular and pedantic readers of this column will know that this is hardly an irregular occurrence, and is in fact the twenty-third such incident this year, these tears were especially hot and scorching.
An intensely personal portrait of iconoclastic architect Louis Kahn, the documentary, subtitled A Son’s Journey, marks the director’s attempt to rediscover a father he barely knew through family, friends and Louis’ singular artistic vision.
From the outset it’s clear that the architect who died, unidentified and bankrupt in a train station bathroom in 1974, is destined to remain an elusive figure. He was, after all, passionately devoted to his work at the apparent expense of the various lovers and three families he left behind. Nathaniel Kahn’s heartbreaking film untangles some of his father’s secretive existence, but given the subject’s architectural drive and self-centredness, the director must content himself by seeking his father in the bricks and mortar he left behind.
Visiting Kahn’s remarkable buildings all over the world – including the Kimbell Art Museum and The Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad – the clearly uncompromising nature of his art practically echoes The Fountainhead. Never mind the obelisks, if you have any interest in art or aesthetics, you’ll find the concrete to be absolutely transcendent. A remarkable fusion of geometry, Loos’ style minimalism and references to ancient ruins, Kahn’s work is both idealistic and groundbreaking.
But, it’s the poignancy of Nathaniel’s enterprise that dominates and seduces. Yes, the film gushes almost too Icelandically even for my liking, and the soundtrack gets a little too obviously overwrought (Handel, anyone?), but it’s terribly affecting all the same.
Suitably and quietly monumental.