"Hard Goodbyes: My Father"

Last updated on: September 18, 2012 at 12:52 pm by Jeffrey Overstreet

"Hard Goodbyes: My Father" 2012-09-18T12:52:26-06:00 Jeffrey Overstreet

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Hard Goodbyes: My Father, which is set in Greece in 1969, reminds me of several other current films, and yet, it is also unique and powerful in its own quiet way.

Like The Return, my favorite film of 2004, Hard Goodbyes is about a family in which two young boys must deal with their bitter mother and a father who’s rarely around to participate in family matters. In this case, the older son resents the father for his long absences. It’s the younger son, Elias, who idolizes him. And, like Dear Frankie and Since Otar Left, it follows characters as they struggle to cope with the absence of a family member in very different ways, including the invention of fictions to mask the pain of reality.

When a sudden turn of events ensures that Elias will be separated from his father forever, the boy is traumatized. To cope with the shock, he transforms his current obsession–the imminent moon-landing of ’69–into a fantasy where his father becomes an astronaut. He lies in the yard at night, fantasizing while staring up at the moon.

Hard Goodbyes, Penny Panayotopoulou’s directorial debut, is a very personal film, and one that is painful to endure because of the camera’s unflinching attention to the boy’s emotional turmoil. Young Elias sleeps next to a star chart, emphasizing not only his preoccupation with space, but also that this is a very small boy in a very big and mysterious cosmos, trying to find his way through a difficult and lonely journey as he comes of age.

It begins with a prayer for God the Comforter to “come and abide in us,” overlaid with flickering television images of a rocketship lifting off. This is only the beginning of the film’s spiritual implications. They glimmer thruoghout the picture, making Elias’s longing for his father an echo of our own spiritual longing for a Heavenly Father who often seems absent.

When Dad comes to visit, we can see that he’s unlikely to stay. His wife seems hard-hearted, at first, but it becomes clear that she’s resentful over being abandoned so often. She’s married to a a troubled businessman, a salesman who works out of his car, and he’s no prize. He’s short-tempered, and he leavesher to do all of the hard work around the house. She misses him, but the longing has burned so deep it has become anger, and she can’t get past that to show him love. She smokes because it’s the “only thing that keeps me company.” She keeps her boy from following his dad, probably because she doesn’t want to see her son become too much like him. She waters two small cacti in the window of their kitchen. Over the course of the film, I found her to be the most sympathetic character, bearing the burden of two boys by herself, with only occasional help from her brother.

Elias is the central character, but he might put you off, as his attachment to his father sometimes seems nearly psychotic; he seems completely unconcerned with his brother and mother. When they fight, he suffers nosebleeds, he counts obsessively, he digs himself further and further into denial.

But Dad isn’t all bad. He delights in Elias, they playfully talk as if they’re successful and headed for a future together in a glorious beach house. He reads Jules Verne to him, voyage stories that resonate with all that we suspect is about to happen. But then he sneaks out of the house in the night, as if that will spare him the pain of abandoning them.

His name, by the way, is Christos, which lends even more weight to the film’s spiritual subtext. Is this also a story of humanity’s plight as spiritual orphans? Are we meant to think of a savior who promised to return, whose absence has gone on so long that his “bride” has grown frustrated and his children broken-hearted?

I recommend you check out Hard Goodbyes: My Father when it becomes available on DVD. The performances are uniformly strong, the cinematography is simple but colorfully engaging, and the story will give you some discomforting dilemmas to discuss. It’s a rough-edged, difficult little drama… in all the right ways.

Journal

Hard Goodbyes: My Father

Penny Panayotopoulou

Previous Post

June 14, 2005

Prayers for the Doe family

Next Post

June 15, 2005 My Favorite Novel is Going to Be a Movie. Again.

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Blog Bloggers on "Through a Screen Darkly" Browser Coming Soon Endorsements Fiction Books Film Forum Film Reviews Inspirations Interviews Journal Kindlings Muse Movie buzz Music Reviews Non-Fiction Books radio Reviewers on "Through a Screen Darkly" The Auralia Thread Through a Screen Darkly Through a Screen Darkly - Bonus Materials Top 10 (or 20 or 100) lists Uncategorized

Select a Month June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 July 2003 May 2003 March 2003 September 1999

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which Psalm is quoted by Jesus on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Select your answer to see how you score.

Psalm 34 Psalm 22 Psalm 137 Psalm 2