"The secret life of architectural genius Louis Kahn"

My Architect: A Son's Journey (2003): 5/10

Poster (c) New Yorker Films

Some documentaries have an interesting topic and create an altogether mesmerizing movie out of it. Others have a very interesting topic but somewhat fizzle out in the middle of it. Still others don't have an interesting topic and fizzle out throughout the whole movie. The last is the case of My Architect: A Son's Journey, a documentary that could have been a moving, loving tribute to Philadelphian architect Louis Kahn. Instead, it's a distant, shallow, and almost mean-spirited look at Kahn's life and buildings, coldly narrated by his son Nathaniel.

Kahn himself is an interesting character-he had not just one but three families. Although after listening to his son talk to us for two hours, it's not hard to understand why he would want to spend as much away from that son as possible. Nathaniel's droll feature narration is not only monotonous and dull, but it seems scripted-almost like someone is telling him how to feel about his father. If he truly did care about his father, then I think he would at least have the dignity of trying to at least act like he cared about his father. It's hard to listen to a man talk about how much he loved his father for two hours when it's obviously not true? Why would Nathaniel even narrate it himself? Instead of giving this BS commentary on his life, why not get someone to read a more impersonal commentary whose voice doesn't start to grate on you soon after the movie begins?

On the other hand, Kahn designed and built some very interesting looking buildings. Many of them were not practical, but they were nice to look at. If only I would have been able to see more of them; the fullscreen presentation really brought down the impact of viewing the buildings. Something that bugged me is that there was nothing about how Kahn got his ideas for his buildings, the ideas behind them. Did he suddenly have ideas pop up into his head, or did he have long, drawn out processes? We never find out. If the members of the Kahn family never found out, I would be OK with that, as long as they didn't keep us wondering about it.

But not only was Nathaniel's narration hard to take, but the film itself isn't very interesting. In fact, some parts are just plain boring. It seems padded to the two hour runtime, yet much of the material was unnecessary, such as the reunion between the three Kahn kids. Sure, it's nice they got to know each other, but necessary? I think not. My Architect was nominated for an Oscar for best documentary. It lost out to The Fog of War. It's easy to see why it lost, too.

Not Rated.

Review Date: April 30, 2004