The Film "Cyanide": Why The Son Tried To Kill His Father - Reviews

The hero of the film is a Canadian teenager Achilles (Alexander Etzlinger). He lives with his mother and waits for his father (Roy Dupuis), whom he has never seen, to be released from prison. Introduces him as a hero - modern Robin Hood, writes beautiful stories and tells friends, looks forward to a happy family reunion. But dreams are shattered against reality: the returned father does not look like a composed image, and the relationship of the parents is reaching a dead end. Will the boy and father be able to find a common language?

Cyanide, 2013

Director Severin Kornamusaz

Cast: Roy Dupuis, Sabine Timoteo, Christophe Serme

The relationship between a child and a parent goes through three stages. They are associated with the separation process - the psychological separation as the child grows up. Separation is not a territorial division: a child can live next to a parent and be an adult independent person, or he can go to the other end of the world, but remain in psychological dependence. Completion of separation is one of the main indicators of psychological maturity.

1. Stage of fusion and idealization

Before adolescence, the parent appears to be an omnipotent figure: the earlier the age, the more “powerful” the figure. The parent is an ideal, a role model. The child does not see in him a real person with his own independent life, it is exclusively “my dad” or “my mother”. The parent's interests that are not related to the child surprise and offend.

The child needs idealization, because it gives a sense of security: the more ideal the parent, the more protective figure he appears. In addition, at an early age, a child does not have his own landmarks, he does not know "what is good and what is bad", he needs a role model - a coordinate system in this incomprehensible world.

2. Stage of depreciation

The child becomes a teenager, passes from childhood to adulthood. He is both frightened and attracted by the prospect of independence. Cope yourself? To be alone with this incomprehensible world? Anxiety increases, as a defensive reaction appears aggressiveness and is directed to the nearest object - parents. An internal contradiction appears: and you want to "fly out of the nest", and it's scary. Therefore, in order to facilitate the separation, the child … devalues the parent. It is impossible to get away from a wonderful idealized object, but from a bad devalued object it is much easier.

Parents need to stock up on stability and patience: the child is thus rehearsing an exit into adulthood. The parent needs resistance to aggression and devaluation from the adolescent. You can allow the child to be angry with himself, but only express anger in the correct form: without violating the parent's boundaries, maintaining respect: you cannot call names, shout, raise your hand, ruin things.

3. Stage of cooperation

By the age of majority (by about 18 years), the child must begin to cooperate with the parent: see him as a real person, with pluses and minuses, maintain respect, the possibility of interaction. This is how an equal contact between two adults is formed. You can get to this stage only by going through the previous ones.

The hero of the film in a short period of time goes through the first two stages and gradually moves on to the third. Father's charm and hopes are replaced by disappointment and hatred, a desire to destroy him. Almost killing his father with cyanide and almost dying, the boy accepts him for who he is: a good man with his own problems.

Seeing a real person in your parent is a difficult task, but necessary for growing up