Father Soldier turns the trenches of World War I into a story about a parent's refusal to let his son face war alone, following a father who enlists in the French Army for one reason only — to stay beside him.
What is Father Soldier about?
Set during World War I, Father Soldier opens with a father learning his 17-year-old son has been conscripted into the French Army against his will. Rather than accept the separation, the father enlists himself, determined to serve alongside his son rather than wait at home for news from the front. Their unit is deployed to Senegal, then a French colony, where the two face combat side by side, the war reshaping both their relationship and the assumptions each carries about duty and protection. The 2022 film keeps its focus tight on the pair, using the colonial front as the backdrop for a story built less around large-scale battle and more around what one man will do to keep his family together.
About the cast
Father Soldier does not lean on a wide ensemble; its story is carried almost entirely by the father and son at its center, with supporting soldiers in their unit filling out the wartime backdrop rather than pulling focus from the central relationship.
Context & significance
Father Soldier sets its story against the French colonial presence in Senegal during World War I, a front far less depicted on screen than the war's more familiar Western European battlegrounds. That choice widens the historical picture the film offers, framing the father-son story within a corner of the conflict that pulled colonial subjects and French citizens into the same fight under very different circumstances. At 98 minutes, the film keeps a tight, character-driven scope rather than attempting a sweeping war epic, and it holds a middling reception that places it among the more modest entries in the genre.
Watching Father Soldier on Ktime
Father Soldier streams on K-Time with a Persian dub, bringing this World War I father-son story to Farsi-speaking viewers without requiring the original French audio. Watching requires a free K-Time account login; the film's page itself is open to read for anyone browsing K-Time's Farsi-language catalog built for the Iranian diaspora.