Perfection is usually a hyperbolic word for describing stuffy classicism or imperfections we've grown to love. Louis Kahn's architecture is all that and more. His buildings are statements of power, of God, of beauty, of the sublime, of a timeless spirit.

You can sense this perfection in Nathaniel Kahn's documentary film, "My Architect." The interview subjects, including I.M. Pei and Frank Gehry, speak with an honest reverence, as if for Louis hyperbole is the only truth. But even without their words, Kahn's buildings would speak for themselves with their brilliant shafts of light, geometric stateliness, and awareness of the nature around them. Whereas I.M. Pei and Frank Gehry are making buildings that look and feel new, Louis Kahn made buildings that looked and felt as if they had always been there.

The film is a passionate journey attempting to decipher how Louis Kahn balanced his career with an unusual family life. That the filmmaker Nathaniel is Louis' son makes the journey all that more personal and passionate. Even in as personal an act as interviewing his mother ("Nathaniel!" she says indignantly at one question), the responses are honest and full of conviction. You feel that these people haven't been so honest before, but now are humbled by Louis Kahn's legacy. The rare instances of oblivious dishonesty are obvious as with the contentious, cantankerous one-time Philadelphia archenemy of Kahn ("You haven't understood a word I've said") and Protestant housewives calling their sister, Kahn's lover, a person whose fantastic dreams drove them up the wall. But in each case, there is a strong opinion whether of love, devotion, or intolerance.

Louis Kahn's genius was seeing past his own time into what he considered to be timeless structures. It wasn't the glass and steel of the modern style, but the Egyptian pyramids and Greek ruins that got him going at the age of 50. Along with looking into the past came a philosophy born of curiosity into the world's religions, especially his own Jewish background. Though denied what would have been an Israeli spiritual center atop a hill, Kahn realized his greatest work in poverty stricken Bangladesh. Finished 9 years after Kahn's death, the capital building of Bangladesh evokes tears from a local architectural scholar as he speaks about the kind of spiritual strength Kahn has provided an entire people through his work. The man urges Nathaniel to not hold a grudge against his father for not being around much, because his father's love was bigger than just family. The film casually connects the work to the Taj Mahal, but it's easy to see its connection to the identity of a people. Indeed, as Nathaniel approaches the architectural masterpieces of his father, the Salk Institute, the Exeter Library, the capital of Bangladesh, that is where he feels closest to his father, because one suspects the philosophy of their design was what Kahn felt was most important to him.

The Texas museum which channels the bright Southern sun into the museum's light is one of the few instances where the use of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony actually felt warranted. The rest of Joseph Vitarelli's score is properly mysterious and weighty. With a full orchestral sound, this is a far cry from the usually minimalist documentary score culled from archival source music and generic chamber music tinkling. For this and the stellar production values as a whole, one must thank Nathaniel for his passionate work in securing dozens of grants for the film.

As a meditation on the life of one man, "My Architect" does exactly what a great documentary should do, go beyond the man's biography and discuss the mysteries of life itself. And though we may not be able to dance about architecture, we can certainly find the cinema in architecture and enjoy Louis Kahn's structures that do not confine but free our imaginations.
-Howard Ho