Acclaimed Hiller’s film called vastly overrated

by ANDREW REPASKY McELHINNEY

When laser discs were first introduced in the ’80s, many of us cinema lovers marveled at the concept of a “director’s commentary.” Finally we could hear what our favorite directors had to say about their craft. However, with the DVD revolution, commentary tracks have become de rigueur, along with such alleged “bonus” items as trailers, deleted scenes or alternate cuts. Film is a mystical and dream-like sensation shuttling through the projector at 24 frames per second, and these added items have increasingly chipped away at the mystery of filmmaking without serving any real purpose other than to stroke the director’s ego and allow yet another way for the home video industry to insist that consumers “must own this film tonight!”

Clearly, good films should stand on their own and be open to interpretation. The truly great filmmakers (Orson Welles, Woody Allen, Stanley Kubrick) working in this age of information have wisely avoided recording commentary tracks. Admittedly, hearing a favorite director chat about his or her film can occasionally be amusing, but more often than not it is totally insufferable and destroys any love affair you might have with their work.

Herein lies the problem with former Chestnut Hill resident and filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn’s feature film about his father, Louis I. Kahn, entitled My Architect: A Son’s Journey. This self-important motion picture is a first-person documentary whose dramatic modus operandi is one-by-one interviews with people who knew his father until at the end we cynically arrive at a heavily slanted portrait of father and illegitimate son. “Cynically” because there is no real sense of discovery. Nathaniel’s narration is often headache-inducing to anyone who possesses even a hint of being able to think for himself. Sadly, the issues that Nathaniel supposedly leaves open are presented in such a way as to not really have any uncertainty about them. As a documentarian, or even as a director of actors, Nathaniel reminds one of a used car dealer who talks himself out of a commission by unnecessarily over-doing the hard sell.

Nathaniel is a filmmaker with talent. It takes a bright, learned individual to make a film as irritating as his. Nathaniel’s visual style is assured and affecting, and in terms of craft, My Architect: A Son’s Journey is never anything less than first-rate. However, as a dramatist his methods are bombastic, simplistic and callow. Nathaniel interjects himself into the on-screen proceedings, so we are subjected to his bullying on-screen persona that reminds me of a Leni Riefenstahl propaganda picture. Never have I wished so hard for the even-handed journalism of Michael Moore!

The failure of My Architect: A Son’s Journey is unfortunate because Nathaniel’s subject, Louis Kahn, is more than intriguing. Kahn Sr. is considered by some to have been one of the most important architects of the second half of the 20th century. His most famous buildings are The Exeter Library in New Hampshire, The Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, The Capital Complex in Dhaka Bangladesh and the Kimbell Art Museum in Texas. His designs are monumental, heavy, post-utilitarian and decidedly modern.

Nathaniel’s film keeps telling us that he was a misunderstood genius, bombarding us with his endless voiceover. This film that presents itself as an open-ended quest actually does nothing but promote the party line. Taken at random, any five minutes of the nearly two-hour My Architect: A Son’s Journey will more or less give you the whole show.

The most objectionable scene in the film is Nathaniel’s interview with Ed Bacon. In the ’50s and ’60s, Bacon was in charge of redeveloping downtown Philadelphia. Kahn Sr. had produced plans that were intriguing but obviously impractical for the way a modern city operates. As Nathaniel skillfully chips away at Bacon in their interview, the latter becomes increasingly frustrated. Eventually the elderly and frail Bacon is goaded into an outburst that totally discredits him and makes him look quite foolish. While it is exciting to see that much explosive passion in someone discussing urban planning and architecture, it is unfortunate that the scene plays as manipulative and unduly unkind.

Louis Kahn’s buildings, while not typical “pretty,” are all intriguing and worth study. Nathaniel’s photography of his father’s work is loving, and his lighting of these creations (by skilled cinematographer Robert Richman) cleverly reflects the spiritual bootprint of each unusual work. But Louis Kahn’s work, unlike his son’s, is anything but literal. Highly stylized and mystic, Kahn’s architecture is transcendent. What a shame that the film about them is so blatant, witless and therefore ultimately meaningless.

If you must, the best way to experience My Architect: A Son’s Journey is with the soundtrack off. Feast your eyes on some extraordinary images, and ignore the condescending attempts at synthesis on the soundtrack. Andrew Repasky McElhinney, who wrote this review, is himself a Chestnut Hill filmmaker. He has made several feature films, including A Chronicle of Corpses, which was named one of the 10 best films of 2001 by a New York Times film critic.