#short forms

When are you coming home, dad?

The film opens up to a father and daughter riding their bicycles down toward the sea shore, stopping at the water’s edge. The father shares a hug with his daughter and hops onto a boat, rowing out into the distance.

The young girl spends the rest of her days visiting the exact same spot at the beach, hoping, perhaps, that her father would soon return. Days turn into years, and soon the little girl becomes a young woman who later has a family of her own, and the area around the beach is gradually reclaimed.

Eventually, she grows into an old woman, and the surrounding beach has since been turned into a polder—a field that had once been part of the seabed. She discovers her father’s boat and runs, aging backwards in the process before she finally comes to her father’s embrace as a young woman.  

 A Tribute to Simplicity

To say that this short draws so much from so little is an understatement. The entire short is done in a monochromatic sepia tone, with sharp shadows and scenes done almost entirely in silhouette. The animation is remarkably fluid—perhaps a consequence of the simplified art style.

The short takes full advantage of the Kuleshov effect. The emotions of the characters are carried almost entirely through body language. In the absence of any obvious cues, the music and surrounding settings help frame the mood of the piece, giving a clear idea of what the characters are doing. In distant shots, meanwhile, the background sounds and scenery elements come together to help viewers identify what would appear to be almost indistinct blots as characters.

Incidental details tells much of the story for her. The passage of time is shown not only by the changing fashions of the daughter and the people around her, but also by the transformation of the beach where her father left. Shortly before her death, it had since dried up; a consequence of the age-old system of land reclamation that has come to define the landscape in the Netherlands.

The play of light and shadow (chiaroscuro) is one of the highlights of the short. Father and Daughter utilizes a very sharp contrast of shadows and lit areas. The characters rarely face the light directly, and the viewer never sees them fully lit for very long.

Although the simplified characters have rather plain, blank faces, they do have a remarkable amount of detail in their clothing that become more apparent when they are facing the light, giving them very distinctive outlines. These incidental details, coupled with the sepia tones, give the image a vintage look, pegging the daughter’s youth at the turn of the 20th Century. The level of detail it does managed to incorporate is amazing, featuring distinct types of waterfowl, readily apparent seasonal changes, and reflections on still water.

The end result is a short that feels natural despite being very simple in its appearance. It feels very real, despite being composed mainly of ink blots and simple, unpretentious line art with less detail than most cartoons.

 Memories are Forever

Much like a beautiful poem, a lot can be said about the alleged meanings that can be drawn from this short. And as with many poems, Father and Daughter draws much of its strength as a narrative when taken entirely as symbolism.

The short is typically seen as an allegorical tale of losing a loved one. The father’s departure on the rowboat is emblematic of his death, and his daughter, far from just waiting for him to come back at the same spot he left, is actually reminiscing about a happier time with her father, who she clearly loved dearly.

This becomes progressively apparent as the daughter gradually ages. The metaphorical nature of the short culminates in the end, where she ages backwards as she runs toward her father, indicating that she has died and is meeting him in Heaven. The spot may not even be an actual place; it may be a metaphor for revisiting the memory of her father or his death, which is why her father’s bike is always there by the tree he left it in.

Part of the beauty of this story, however, is that is that its opening can still be taken at face value and still retain much of its resonance—albeit with an added layer of tragedy. If the father’s departure on the boat is literal (i.e. he died at sea not long after), then it could be that she’s remembering the last moment when she saw her father alive.

 Closing Thoughts

Father and Daughter represents one of the best things I like in motion pictures as a medium: the ability to use incidental details to create depth in a narrative. It’s a classic example of show, don’t tell—and one that is unique in that it doesn’t show a lot at all—which puts it in stark contrast to the types of short that I usually enjoy. Despite this economy of visuals, it still carries a beautiful story with what it does show.