Mother - Blu-ray Review

'a challenging and complex tale with numerous layers of ambiguity and threat'

Joon-ho Bong's The Host is a fantastically shot and directed monster movie about the invasion of Seol by some sort of river-dwelling beastie, which keeps on carting off local people in a none-too pleasant way. His follow up, Mother, is nothing of the sort. In fact, the films really couldn't be any more different. Mother is a slow-burning thriller revolving around a murder case which sees simple-natured Do-joon (Bin Won) wrongly arrested and convicted, leaving Hye-ja Kim's maternal figure as the only person who believes in his innocence and is willing to do anything about it.

From this standard starting point, Bong sets about telling a challenging and complex tale with numerous layers of ambiguity and threat. Kim's passionate mother is a riveting character but equally a completely unpredictable one, flitting between despair and resolute investigative integrity. In many ways, this is a police procedural but in Bong's hands the layers of the genre are un-wrapped, manipulated and repackaged. This is a film where anything goes and Bong isn't averse to including horror or gangland elements in the otherwise fairly straightforward plot.

What this means is that Mother is, at times, a difficult watch. On several occasions, Bong's plot turns deliver sucker punches that are difficult for both the characters and audience to cope with, driving the film forwards into uncharted and uncertain territory. The development of Jin-tae (Ku Jin) is one of the few pleasing aspects of the plot but Bong, eager to unsettle and secure our engagement, limits our exposure to him, only having him appear to help or hinder Mother when it is absolutely necessary.

The director's pacing too seems designed to deliberately challenge anyone who thinks they can sit down for a passive couple of hours. Bong delivers the film through large and methodically chosen helpings of plot, rather than abstract vistas to show off Kyung-Pyo Hong's beautifully lit cinematography. At over two hours, this amount of plotting can be difficult to take but Bong's technical know-how and calculated risk taking keeps you involved, even if his twists can sometimes unsettle in stomach-crunching ways.



8 comments:

  1. Good review. Joon-ho Bong is a talented director and I thought Mother was an interesting film. Hye-ja Kim's performance was excellent.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Agree completely on Bong. I love THE HOST and I've just added one of his earlier films to my rental list. Agree on Hye-ja Kim too - it's a riveting central performance which is difficult to watch at times and beautiful at others.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I've never seen THE HOST, although it's been in my queue forever. Sounds like it and MOTHER are definitely worth watching.

    ReplyDelete
  4. They're both very different but very very good films. Personally I prefer THE HOST but this was excellent as well. I'm going to go back and check out MEMORIES OF MURDER, Bong's other major release.

    ReplyDelete
  5. What a great movie. Not quite as unreal as The Host and Memories of Murder, but who am I kidding, Bong is one of the best directors out there right now and this freakin' rocks. Great writeup, man. Gotta spread that Bong love to the masses.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Can't wait to see MEMORIES OF MURDER. You're absolutely right: he's one of the few directors who's got me genuinely excited for whatever his next film is.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oh yeah, absolutely check out 'Memories of Murder.' I really, really liked 'Mother' but was blown away by 'Memories.' I didn't think it was possible to make detective/murder mystery/slasher film like that.

    If I were to dare make a foolish comparison, 'Hot Fuzz' is what it resembles most, but at the same time not at all.

    As for 'Mother', I love how it takes such a puly concept and makes a really gripping movie. Joon-ho Bong is really good at that sort of thing.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I think he's just an incredibly interesting director who knows how to make films both compelling in plot terms and interesting visually. If you take the first scene of MOTHER (Kim dancing in the field), I thought it was going to be a very 'floaty', abstract, piece but Bong makes it much more compelling and innovative than that.

    ReplyDelete