Regarded by some as 'plotless,' like many Sokurov films, Father and Son combines two narrative structures, one circular, the other linear. Given Father's youthfulness, he and Aleksei seem to understand each other, yet their life experiences separate them, and over the course of the film a rift gradually develops between them, that rift and Aleksei's reaction to it becoming the source of his subsequent nightmares. The Father is a former combat helicopter pilot, and Aleksei attends military school where he is studying to become a sports trainer. A father (Father) and his son Aleksei share a roof-top apartment in an unidentified seaside city.
