CinemaSpeak

by Warren Curry
3/10/10

To provide some (perhaps unnecessary) context, I watched “Mother” after a particularly long, taxing day and, to be frank, sitting through a film that ran over two hours didn’t exactly sound like a remedy to help me unwind. However, it took Bong-Joon ho’s (”The Host”) new movie only one scene to snap me out of my malaise, as the image of an older woman walking to the camera and then breaking into a seemingly random dance immediately enthralled me. “Mother” turned out to be the perfect cure to chase the blues away.

This unexpected introductory scene sets the tone for a movie that is, if not completely unpredictable, certainly spontaneous. “Mother” doesn’t traffic in the hardboiled atmosphere that often defines edge-of-your-seat thrillers, rather Bong-Joon Ho uses a smooth storytelling style to cohesively unite disparate elements such as brief jolts of jarring violence, his now familiar left-field sense of humor and touches of melodrama. Bong’s filmmaking gift is his uncanny ability to make his directing hand nearly invisible.

The dancing woman mentioned above is the title character (Kim Hye-ja), who almost obsessively cares for her 27-year old son, Do-joon. Do-joon (Won Bin) has a slight mental/emotional disability that leaves him prone to repeated errors in judgment. When the film begins, Do-joon is the victim of a hit and run while standing on the street in front of his mother’s herb shop. He’s not seriously hurt, but goaded by his only friend, the overbearing, difficult to trust Jin-tae (Jin Goo), the two young men track down the driver and his passengers at a golf course, where chaos erupts.

But this incident is just a harbinger of bad things to come. A few days later, a schoolgirl’s dead body is displayed for the town to view. A piece of evidence links Do-joon to the crime scene, resulting in his arrest. The local police want an open-and-shut case, but Do-joon’s mother is determined to prove her son’s innocence at almost any cost. As Mother’s investigation grows deeper, the woman’s personal line between right and wrong is dangerously blurred.

What makes “Mother” so captivating is the foreboding sense that just about anything can happen at any moment. Bong keeps you off guard the entire time, and characters you thought you had figured out early on upend expectations. The director’s attention to cinematic detail rivals that of Quentin Tarantino, and his bold synthesis of various styles comes off remarkably fluid. Not many directors working today put as much effort into pure filmmaking craftsmanship as Bong does. That level of skill combined with a slightly off-kilter worldview results in a rich payoff.

While the film’s offbeat comedy is a distinctive touch, the director also explores the characters’ darker layers, a few which are left purposely (at least I assume) ambiguous. On paper, it may sound like Mother is a typical sensitive, sympathetic character, and while she certainly has those elements, that description doesn’t begin to address the tenacity for which she cares for her son. It’s that tenaciousness which makes her so fascinating. With everything else it has going for it, Kim Hye-ja certainly doesn’t need to carry this movie, but her strong, wholly committed performance proves she easily could have if needed. Fortunately for us, Kim’s work is just one of many superb components in the mix.

Despite how quirky Bong’s films can be at times, they’re quite accessible at their core. “Mother,” which was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award, will help expand the filmmaker’s profile internationally, and I’d hardly be surprised if we see him make a film in the U.S. before long. A filmmaker this wondrously talented deserves as wide an audience as he can get.

contact: wcurry718@yahoo.com

Mother (South Korea/2009)

(Magnolia Pictures; opens in New York City and Los Angeles March 12, 2010.)

Tags: Bong-Joon ho, Korean Films, Magnolia Films, March 2010 theatrical releases

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 at 8:02 pm and is filed under In Theaters/Coming Soon (2010). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.