I am your father by Mathieu Vadepied: the review by Paolo Mereghetti

THEOR I AM YOUR FATHER
Type: between war and colonialism
Director: Mathieu Vadepied. With Omar Sy, Alassane Diong, Jonas Bloquet, Bamar Kane, Alassane Sy, Aminata Wone, François Chattot, Clément Sambou

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There were 200,000 Senegalese enlisted in the French army and sent to fight in the First World War (with 30,000 dead). The film by director of photography Mathieu Vadepied starts here, here in his second attempt as a director, to tell the story of young Thierno and his father Bakary who decides to voluntarily enlist to protect his son.

They will both end up in the Ardennes, discovering firsthand the horrors of a war where soldiers were just meat to be sent to slaughter. And where the child ends up looking for a way to help him free himself from the too suffocating protection of the parent (the Italian title, instead of the original Tirailleurs i.e. riflemen, is to be understood almost as an imperative, with which the father reaffirms his authority and his role).

Omar Sy in “I Am Your Father”

Nothing really new but declined here through the theme of colonialism and double “condemnation” of Senegalese soldiers, forced to come to terms with the horrors of war but also with the weight of racial differences. That the familiar face of Omar Sy colors with a surplus of empathy.

For those who want to discover the war of the last.

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