Father and Daddy

Jarl Bäfving, a successful manager of an industrial company and an enthusiastic amateur photographer, had two different men in him, according to his younger son. One of them was the sombre, withdrawn Father who was never at home; on weekends and family holidays, he would become the smiling boogie-woogie Daddy. The latter would sing, play the piano and make everybody laugh. When Erik was fifteen, the gloomy Father, who would already smell of alcohol by then, opened the window in his luxurious office on the highest floor and jumped out. He took Erik’s beloved Daddy with him. They were gone, both of them, and their place in the lives of teenage Erik and his siblings became abandoned and terribly empty.
Swedish editor and documentarist Erik Bäfving has returned to the painful moment of his adolescence twice already. First in 2002 in his film Boogie Woogie Daddy, 9 years later in his film Inbetweener; both times in the form of reconstructing the past by means of photographs from the rich family archive left behind by Jarl Bäfving instead of a good-bye letter. While the former film deals primarily with the character of the father (i.e. fathers), in the latter, the director immerses into his own personality, both past and present. Describing his thoughts and feelings, he critically reflects on the unlucky way in which he had tried to cope with the disappearance of his father from his life. With the shift of the theme, the variety of the means of expression is enriched as well. Photographs from the family album are supplemented by Bäfving’s drawings (very well done by the way) which make the intense film experience even more powerful and convincing.