My Architect

Rating:
Summary: the best movie ive seen all year
Review: a great movie !! its a revelation-- compelling heartwarming heartbreaking-- informative- surprising--- it just gets better and better as we get to know the man the filmmaker is searching for -- from myth to all too human--- its the story of a great man and the price the families who loved him had to pay ---- the last scene says the most-- and the veritable miracle of his bangladesh capital building--- what it does for those lucky enough to use this amazing and gorgeous other worldly yet earthy strucure-- how it shapes lives and elevates them ! and the sheer beauty of it all--- and how this legacy can in the end compensate somehow for familial neglect-- for the benefit of all---this beauty this grand human effort has its costs !!!but the splendor this man has wrought for us-- and now thru the efforts of his son---given more exposure-- in this day and age of wars and money ruling the day--- its a welcome reminder of the things that last -that are of god and promote life ! of a different kind of hero and their works !it was quite literally for me a religious experience ! this film is in a class by itself and is trascendent and humbling !!! i sat thru it twice and was twice rewarded beyond all expectation !

Rating:
Summary: A Glorious Movie
Review: For me having taken some courses with a past student of Professor Kahn's I was totally involved in the dymanics of this film. I was not denied the rigor. Nataniel Kahn understands the value of honoring his film's subject matter-its architecture. The way of honor was a big part of Professor Kahn's philosophy, in which his materials cried structure! Testing the Kahn legecy this film and its subject matter silently called to my architectural persuits,then pushed itself right into my engineering mind. Since seeing this unique film I've visited the Exeter Academy Library,in which all that past silence,discourse,and the film came to incredible life. The library is an important lessons in reinforced concrete in terms of forming that material into warm spaces and gentle structures. The film with its large life inspired all this, which allowed me to touch its genius.



Rating:
Summary: A Son's Gift
Review: I put My Architect just short of five stars, but it is way better than the great majority of your movie choices and will be the same once it is released on DVD.

Nathaniel Kahn's premise, that his father's family situation was highly unusual and dysfunctional for all involved, is surely accurate for the times portrayed in the film, but seems almost quaint now -- man (or woman) has relationship and children by more than one woman (or man), so what? With that perspective, the scenes with his mother, the other women in his father's life, and -- particularly -- his half-siblings are far and away the least interesting elements in the film and can be excruciatingly slow.

Almost everything else, however, is very impressive. The footage of Kahn with students, especially one scene where he is talking about the importance of understanding bricks, is wonderful. The unrelenting enmity of Kahn's victorious adversary in the remaking of downtown Philadelphia, his inability to say a single good thing about Kahn even after decades, bemuses Nathaniel on camera while capturing the towering egos of the two rivals.

The buildings range from the pedestrian (his first) to the sublime (the Congress in Bangladesh) and seeing them close up through the camera feels almost like a privilege. There is also a sublime argument for why brilliant architecture matters when, very late in the film, one Bangladeshi says that just the fact of having one of the branches of government housed in such a superb building increased the value of democracy to all the people of the country.

Rating:
Summary: A Son's Tribute and Self-Discovery
Review: I saw this film twice. I was stunned the first time and just as impressed the second. Nathaniel Kahn wanted to find out who his largely absent father was, the famous but difficult architect Louis Kahn. The film is one of the most evocative and beautiful about modern architecture as well as a frank depiction of how self-absorbed a genius can be. Kahn was the most considerate and inconsiderate man, the most generous and withholding. A barrel of contradictions. But what architecture--and there's so little of it. A must-see film for its beauty and emotional power.

Rating:
Summary: Art as a spiritual journey...
Review: I walked into My Architect: A Son's Journey expecting a solid documentary in a year of many wonderful documentary releases. Little did I realize that I would be receiving much, much more than that.

My Architect is an amazingly compelling story of a son's journey to discover more about the father he never really knew. As the film progressed, and drew me more and more into its fascinating discoveries, it reminded me so much of a real life Citizen Kane - A portrait of a prominent figure head, painted as indestructible, but just as human and fallible as those he seems to tower above.

Interview after interview, director Nathaniel Kahn peered into tearful eyes as the interviewee explained how Louis Kahn, his father, had touched their lives. Kahn was portrayed not only as an great architect, but as a friend, father, rival, cuckold, and savior depending on who Nathaniel happened to be talking to at the moment.

How could a man of such influence and integrity in the workplace be so careless with the family aspect of his life? How did he manage to juggle three secret lives? What would he have done had he not died of a sudden heart attack in a train station? Where was he going? My Architect meditates on these questions in such a beautiful and poignant way, it is impossible to not be moved by the discoveries.

Not simply an exploration of family conflicts, My Architect is also a poetic study of art as a political medium, as a career, and most importantly as a deeply spiritual journey.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best movies Ive seen..ever.
Review: I went into this film as an architecture student, but this film was so wholly moving that it doesn't matter if you're an architect or not. I started crying about 15 minutes in, and didn't stop until the credits began to role. It's amazing to see this great man's life, to bring Louis Kahn down from his pedestal and realize how fully human and imperfect he was. This movie displays not only how his buildings affected the mindset of entire countries, but also how his personal life affected, often painfully so, the lives of those closest to him.
This movie really is a son's journey, and we see candidly the son's discovery of his father as he never knew him, as well as the son's struggle to piece together his own identity as it relates to his father's many different "lives".
This film has an almost spiritual depth, and leaves one with a refreshed appreciation for the beauty of art and life.

Rating:
Summary: An Honest Documentary
Review: Nathaniel Kahn did a great job. The movie deals with his personal journey in searching for a question: Who was Louis Kahn ,his father-- the man and the professional. Sometimes, the documentary is very emotional, but always honest. Louis Kahn was a person larger than life, a mystic, philosophical personality. I met Mr. Kahn in Israel in December 1973 while attending a Congress of Engineers and Architects. As a guest speaker, he showed us his enthusiasm regarding his work. Mr. Kahn was not a tall person, however he had the power to grow on the podium mainly because of the conviction of his ideas. In a way, the documentary shows that Mr. Kahn touched people's life with his unending energy.

Rating:
Summary: A Perfect Film
Review: Nathaniel Kahn's search for his Father is an unsentimental, real life epoch detailing Louis Kahn's commitment to his art - Architecture. It is wonderfully told and beautifully photographed, including breathtaking images of Kahn's "other" children, his buildings. Kahn's private life is dealt with honestly and without regret. Each of the two times I have seen the film, the audience expressed it's appreciation with applause and I have come away wanting to see it again.

Rating:
Summary: A Glorious Movie
Review: This is the only movie I've wanted to see more than once in the past several years. It is also the only one I've cried at in years. The photography is stunning. The honesty of the emotions is something very rare, and the insight he shows toward the "Kahn women" should be an example for every filmmaker.

Rating:
Summary: An endearing portrait of one of America's great architects
Review: You don't have to be an architect to enjoy this movie. Nathaniel Kahn makes this a very personal journey as he ferrets out the details surrounding his father's mysterious death in Pennsylvania Station in 1974. Along the way you get treated to some wonderful insights into Kahn's work and separate lives by those who were closest to him. Louis Kahn was a powerful creative force and as such drew a lot of persons into his orbit, but at the same time Kahn had no idea how to manage his life, collapsing to the floor of the train station on his way back from India, and dying of a heart attack that left a deep void in the architectural world. But, it was also revealed at his funeral that Kahn had several close personal relationships in which he fathered three children from different women. Nathaniel is the youngest of these children and the only son. As such, it seems he assumed the burden to tell the story of his nomadic father. Nathaniel doesn't know much about architecture, leaving it to the architects he interviewed to relate the importance of Kahn's work to the viewer. Nathaniel is closer to home when he interviews family and friends of Kahn, touching deep emotional nerves, and giving this film its impact.