TEMPORALITY AND THE FIGHT FOR MEANING IN ‘THE FATHER’ (2020)

In a pivotal scene very near the end of Florian Zeller’s 2020 film The Father, the titular character Anthony (played by Sir Anthony Hopkins) says to a caregiver in a heartbreaking moment of memory struggle, “I feel as if I’m losing all my leaves ... the branches and the wind and the rain ... I don’t know what’s happening anymore.”