Film: Mother
Release date: 20th September 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 129 mins
Director: Bong Joon-ho
Starring: Kim Hey-ja, Won Bin, Ku Jin, Yoon Jae-moon, Jun Mi-sun
Genre: Crime/Drama/Mystery/Thriller
Studio: Optimum
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: South Korea
Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho is no stranger to the time honoured and complex themes of murder and family dysfunction, as attested in his previous work: the brutal police procedural Memories Of Murder (2003) and – perhaps better known – the monster-movie adventure The Host (2006). His newest work, Mother – South Korea’s official submission for the Foreign Language Oscar at the 82nd Academy Awards – sets out to combine these two thematic strands.
The story focuses on the eponymous Mother (played by Kim Hye-ja), a humble herb seller and unlicensed acupuncturist who is very protective over her simple-minded adult son Yoon Do-joon (Bin Won) who regularly finds himself in trouble when following the lead of his reckless, troublemaking friend Jin-tae (Goo Jin).
When Yoon is the victim of a minor hit and run incident with a passing Mercedes, Jin-tae decides to follow the car to exact revenge, leading them to an exclusive golf club; the lackadaisical and forgetful Yoon content to collect lost golf balls in the shallows of a lake as they search the grounds. When the driver – a man of certain importance plus his entourage – are found, a scuffle occurs on the green.
Frustrated over the whole saga, and his Mother bailing him out of trouble with the police, Yoon Do-joon arranges to meet with Jin-tae at a bar for drinks. Jin-tae doesn’t show and Yoon proceeds to get heavily inebriated.
On his drunken walk home, he tries to strike up a conversation with a young girl walking alone towards an abandoned house but has no success. The girl is found dead the next day; half hanging off the roof of the abandoned building. A golf ball with Yoon’s name self scribed on it found at the crime scene, combined with Yoon’s hazy recollection of what happened that evening, places him under arrest as the murderer. Convinced of his innocence, Yoon’s mother goes on a mission to find the real killer…
Assuming the role of detective, Kim Hye-ja’s Mother character makes for an endearing and unique perspective on what could’ve quite easily been a rather flat and pedestrian slice of murder/mystery escapism. However, in director Bong Joon-ho’s hands, Mother eschews many of the drab clichés and narrative traits that usually sentences most work from an otherwise overcrowded genre to the realms of mediocrity, and manages to create something that’s engrossing (for the most part), touching and laced with typical Korean-style dark humour.
To start, Kim Hye-ja’s performance as the film’s titular hero is simply a pleasure to behold. Her quietly expressive nature allows her to walk a fine and difficult line between being a strong and dignified individual who is also a flawed and vulnerable creature. It is a performance that is so integral to the execution of the overall work that for it to be anything less than good would greatly diminish the film’s impact. Fortunately, this is not the case. Supporting performances are also fine. Bin Won’s Yoon Do-joon is able to play simple without resorting to merely playing dumb, a performance that keeps his character’s motivations unpredictable and fresh; Goo Jin’s shadier Jin-tae is also given plenty to do.
While the mystery itself is not particularly spectacular, that’s hardly the film’s concern. Mother is a film about the bond between a mother and son, made strong by a fatherless and borderline poverty stricken family situation; a bond that’s pushed to the outer limits. As the mother’s investigation develops – refreshingly playing down on the usual modus operandi of simply moving from one red herring to another – she begins to discover the lengths she’ll go to in order to clear her son’s name lending to some very touching moments, especially when their troubled past begins to re-enter Yoon’s otherwise unreliable memory. Interestingly, Yoon seems to get on fine without his mother, which, if anything, reflects on her disposition, and suggests that maybe she is the one who needs him.
Bong Joon-ho cuts back on the fun and dynamism of his previous effort The Host to create something which is sombre and mature, but it’s not without a sense of humour - the film’s opening crane shot sees the mother trudging through a field in the countryside towards camera before doing a little dance as the opening credits gently fade onto screen. A concept that re-emerges in the film’s final moments, but this time underpinned with newfound resonance and meaning.
Park Eun-kyo and Park Wun-kyo’s screenplay (co-written with Bong Joon-ho) unfortunately, doesn’t deeply explore the film’s complex and dark central relationship, choosing to make light of the unusually close, almost incestuous bond instead. Both characters share the same bed for instance, prompting raised eyebrows from many interstitial characters. Another moment sees the mother bringing a bowl of medicine for her son to consume as he urinates against the wall of a building while waiting for the bus. The mother offers said medicine after she takes a prolonged look at Yoon’s crotch as he relieves himself, with Yoon continuing as he drinks.
The film’s direction and camerawork is certainly indebted, if only slightly, to past suspense vendors such as Alfred Hitchcock, although, having said that, Mother never generates heaps of tension; an incident that sees the mother silently creeping past a sleeping suspect is about as close as the film gets to anything suspenseful. However, this playing with audience expectation is perhaps Mother’s strongest asset. Bong Joon-ho throws plenty of curveballs, creating an air of uncertainty, which is paramount for the murder/mystery genre; you’re never quite sure what’s going to happen next. Yoon’s arrest turns into a strangely funny moment when the police car is caught in a traffic accident a quarter of a mile down the road. Incidentally, a darker moment sees the mother paying Jin-tae to beat up high-schoolers who may know something about her son’s supposed murder victim. On the flipside, this uncertainty also means that the film feels like its going off course sometimes, but manages to regroup before the end credits.
Despite interest wavering slightly during the second act, Mother is a fine meld of contemporary Korean drama and classic mystery movie and wins, mainly because of Kim Hye-ja’s wonderfully balanced central performance, but also because of its emotional simplicity, leading to a beautifully bittersweet denouncement. Those concerned that Bong Joon-ho was crossing over to pursue box office domination as hinted in The Host can rest assured, Mother is a quietly clever and entertaining work - and comes recommended. MP
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