Friday, February 17
My Architect: A Son's Journey
dir. Nathaniel Kahn, USA 2003

What a sad film this, and how filled with the mystery of human life. When Nathaniel Kahn read the obituary of his father, the great American architect Louis I. Kahn, he expected, somehow, to see his own name listed among the survivors. But in death, as in life, his father kept his secrets. Louis Kahn had an "official" family, including his wife Esther and daughter Sue Ann. He had two other secret families: With fellow architect Anne Tyng he had a daughter, Alexandra, and with his colleague Harriet Pattison he had Nathaniel.

That Kahn was a great architect is clear from the loving photography of his work by his son. His masterpiece, the capitol of Bangladesh in Dhaka, is a building that invites the spirit to soar. His other works included the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, the Yale Art Gallery, the Salk Institute in California, and, most surprising, a "music boat" he designed almost like a vessel from a cartoon. The boat sails into a harbor, folds up into a proscenium stage, and presents a concert for the listeners onshore.

Against these achievements the movie sets a lifetime of struggle, secrecy, stubbornness, deception and frequent failure. - Robert Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times