A veteran documentarian whose career started in the early ‘70s, Nick Broomfield’s best known work includes Kurt & Courtney, Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer, and Whitney: Can I Be Me. His latest film sees him take a far more personal and intimate approach, focusing on his relationship with his father, photographer Maurice Broomfield.

Maurice’s work focused on British industry in its many forms, romanticising factory work and workers alike. He created glamorous, stunning shots which are described here as looking like “a Hollywood brush had been put over them”, all perfectly staged and lit. Conversely, Nick’s documentaries have always taken a far more raw and confrontational approach, something that the two men often clashed over. Despite these conflicts, the father-son bond remained strong enough to withstand many years of disagreements. Ultimately, My Father and Me is a loving tale of a son saying a final goodbye to his father. 

Through exploring his father’s life, Broomfield expertly balances the minutiae alongside global-scale themes and events such as poverty, racism, and the Holocaust. He begins to unravel wider topics such as his mother’s life as a Jewish refugee and the hardships both she and Nick’s maternal grandparents suffered. These areas are explored through a collage of archive footage and photos, bringing to life not only his family’s stories, but stories of Britain across the decades.

Broomfield is in the enviable position of having copious footage and recordings of his father, alongside his life’s work, something that many people his age simply don’t have. This is a glorious scrapbook of memories and emotions, not only documenting the relationship between these two incredibly skilled artists, but also of the changes and turmoil that this country and its people have been through over the last 100 years. My Father and Me is an intimate documentary that manages to encapsulate many universal stories.

RATING: 4/5

INFORMATION

CAST: Maurice Broomfield, Nick Broomfield

DIRECTOR: Nick Broomfield

SYNOPSIS: Nick Broomfield explores his relationship with his father, photographer Maurice Broomfield. The film is both memoir and tribute, and in its intimate story of one family, takes an expansive, philosophical look at the twentieth century itself.

AVAILABLE TO WATCH ON: BBC Two on 20th March at 9.45pm, stream on BBC iPlayer