To Whom It May Concern,
A friend recently asked me if I had seen If I Go Will They Miss Me. I told them that although I had, I couldn't share my thoughts yet, because I hadn't allowed myself to fully process the experience.
Once I started, I realized it reminded me of another film I saw last year at ABFF, a documentary called Good Shot. Both films are about men from Watts, California, specifically the Nickerson Gardens projects, trying to navigate fatherhood and their own complicated personhood.
This month marks 5 years since my stepfather passed away. Later this year, in December, it will be 20 years since my father passed away. One grew up in the Nickersons and the other in a neighboring part of Watts. Both of them died from cancer. My relationships with them were complicated, in different ways, and one of those relationships was marked by a lot of absence.
If I Go Will They Miss Me depicts a son, Little Ant, who draws his father, Big Ant, as a Greek god. Big Ant pushes back against that narrative, presumedly because the idea of being that large in his son's eyes is daunting. Big Ant lashes out instead of leaning in. He creates distance between him and Lil Ant, almost as if he doesn't want to be seen by his son. Knowing that his son is around the same age he was when he started getting in trouble, Big Ant is worried that he will turn out like him.
In Good Shot, you get to know Maxwell, a legend in the Nickersons, a one-man-taxi service, and a regular at the liquor store on the corner. He breezes through the duplicated rows of homes reminiscing about the successes he had as a basketball star. In the same breath, he stews over his belief that his ambitions were never going to go far because he didn't have the support of his father. All the while, he laments over missed opportunities to be present for his younger children, while desperately wanting to keep his oldest son out of trouble.
The films represent the possibility to be seen, even the parts of our past that plague us, and I think that possibility is what I longed for while watching. The possibility of seeing my fathers. See them in their fullness and their intricacies. See them struggling. See them just being. The fathers in these films got to be layered and full in a way that I didn't get to experience my fathers.
My stepfather, Ed, had been in my life since I was seven. In a lot of ways, I knew him, but at the same time, I didn't. I was a stubborn kid who wanted to make it clear that he wasn't my father, and he was an old-school man who barely knew how to show love. It took time, but we built a rapport and developed our own way of communicating. His death was probably one of the hardest things I've ever experienced.
Then there's my actual father, Kenneth, who passed away when I was 12. I can think of only a handful of interactions I had with him. Most of what I know about him comes from other people: the half-joking stories my mother tells about what a bad husband he was; the joy on my sister's face when she talks about her favorite memories of him; and the letter I wrote telling him that if he didn’t want to be in my life that I didn’t need him.
When I see films like If I Go Will They Miss Me and Good Shot, I wonder what my fathers thought of themselves—as people, as men, as fathers. I’ll probably never know those answers, but I've lived long enough to know that things aren't always linear. Sometimes, even when you want to, you still can't. Sometimes there are internal things that keep you from being your best self or giving your best to the people you love.
If I Go Will They Miss Me and Good Shot showed me fathers with dimension, portrayed so expansively that my own fathers were humanized just a little bit more. Experiencing these impeccably shot films helped me realize that we can still be whole while having holes.
Forever Grateful,
Khadijah Fanaka