Father and Daughter

In 2000, Father and Daughter won the Academy Award for Best Short Film for its Dutch director Michael Dudok de Wit. For such a short (eight minutes) movie it has a remarkable capacity to move an audience. The story of a father who leaves his daughter and rows off into the ocean, it commences with two figures riding their bicycles, the smaller of the wheels in perfect symmetry with the larger. The father and daughter climb to the top of a hill at which point the father alights, hugs his daughter before climbing down to the seashore. He cannot resist running back and holding the girl one last time before rowing off towards the distant horizon. The girl runs up and down against the skyline as the sun gradually sets. There is no explanation. She returns again and again to her vantage point on the cliff to peer out to sea for his return. Each return marks a passage in her life from child to adolescent, mother and eventually old woman. And still she returns to search for the father who left her.

The landscape of the Netherlands with its wide skies and tall poplar trees is the backdrop to the movie. The sky and landscape is a delicate colour wash of brown, grey, sepia, sometimes hints of green or blue. The drawing is pencil and charcoal, the drawings scanned and colour added digitally. Remarkably in a film that deals in emotion, there is no facial detail whatsoever. Often the figures are drawn in silhouette. This can be remarkably effective in conveying mood: the old woman toiling up the hill, the flapping arms of the child, the teenager gliding down the slope on her bike, which in another later scene will simply not stand upright. Always the brushwork is spare, perhaps a stroke that transforms into a slender girl or a smudge for the squared old woman. Each shot is exquisite: the long shadows of trees or bicycle; seascape and sky, vast and empty. The seasons change with a rustle of leaves or the girl struggling up the hill against a wind that bends trees. The music by Norman Roger is sympathetic to the theme, essentially a lilting tune but arranged with tone and depth.

This astonishingly accomplished and poetic movie fulfils in every sense. Michael Dudok de Wit was born in 1953 and educated in Holland. In 1978, he graduated from the West Surrey College of Art in England. His films include Tom Sweep (1992), The Monk and the Fish (1994) and The Aroma of Tea (2006). You might also have seen the rather classy commercial for United Airlines, A Life. Given his draftsman-like qualities, Michael is much in demand as an illustrator for books. My Christmas present from my family, and well recommended, was Best of British Animation Awards Vol.4 that includes Michael's Oscar winning short.

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I was lucky enough to see this at an animation masterclass in Glasgow in 2001. Thankfully the lights were dimmed when they showed this so we could all cry in the dark.

A masterpiece that does not waste a single frame. Stylish and straight to the emotional nerve.

The feeling of longing in this short is almost suffocating. Longing is such a strong emotion that is not expressed often enough in cinema. If anyone in film can get half as close to true longing as "Father and Daughter" they will touch the audience for life.

People MUST see this. Someone out there - What about a compilation video of "10 Years of Animated Shorts Oscar Winners" Please?

This is one of the most amazing shorts I've seen. The story of love between a girl and her father is so amazing. As the father leaves his daughter, she still comes back to the last place she saw him as she grows older. The story is touching, and the music is amazing. Not to mention the animation, which was so beautiful. I thought this film was certainly deserving of its Academy Award, despite "Rejected" being one of my favorites also. But this film is so touching, so beautiful, I could watch it again and again and not get tired of it. The ending was so touching- but I won't spoil it. Watch this film and you will never forget it.

This short film apparently took 8 years to make and it shows.

I saw it as part of an arts degree programme at NEWI, Wrexham where it was used to demonstrate to the Level 1 audience what empathy (the subject of the next essay) could be.

The artwork shows what can be achieved with the utmost economy of line, no massive Disney or Pixar art work here. It is truly incredible the depth of emotion that such an apparently very simple, short film can bring out. It certainly made the 'empathy' point, I defy anybody with any kind of normal human feelings not to be moved by this film.

I heartily recommend this film if you can get to see it.

This is the story about a father and his daughter. First, the father went to somewhere by bicycle and boat. His daughter saw him off by the sea.

The daughter waited for a long time, because her father did not come back. A long time passed after he went. She waited and met for him on the rainy day and wind day, with her bicycle. She grew up. She made many friends. They spent their days the usual way. However, she did not go through. She stopped at the place she said good bye to her father. She had never forgotten.

This story makes me so sad. I want her to meet her father when he lived. However I like this movie, because I can see the love of the father and daughter. It is so beautiful.

I recommend this story. If you see this, you can see the love of father and daughter. You will feel so good.