Footnote
A tale that explores the subtle but difficult relationship between filial piety, individual ambitions, and academic objectivity. This film is impeccably directed and every scene conveys strong emotions in a seamless manner. The viewer feels like an invisible observer to a complex family drama. A son's love and admiration for his father makes him loose his sense of academic objectivity, and sacrifice his own ambitions to remedy an injustice made against his father. Throughout his ordeal, he realizes that the image that he has of his father does not fit reality. The son feels that embracing reality and seeing his father for what he is would be a betrayal. The fact that the story takes place in a Hebraic philology department heightens the moral stakes and narrows the set of alternatives that are available to the characters. To remain loyal to the image he has of his father he betrays his own academic judgement. In a beautiful twist of fate the son sacrifices his ambitions for his father's glory, somewhere yearning for a father's love and pride. A love and pride that he never fully received and does not know how to communicate to his own son. The ending is magnificent as the son's moral dilemma haunts the father who then needs to ask himself if he has an honest image of his son and of himself. The ending could not have been better. Highly recommended!