4.5 out of 5
Mother is the latest film from Joon-ho Bong, who made a figurative splash in 2007 with The Host – a big budget action film that delivered actual entertainment, genuine thrills and memorable performances. Bong’s 2004 serial killer thriller pic Memories of a Murder was even better. Go find it.
Restraint and attention to detail are two of the hallmarks of Bong’s approach. Minor characters are fully formed – they don’t simply appear, filling in space with the occasional quip or clunky dialogue to aid exposition. By the same token his films aren’t replete with flashy, attention grabbing performances or glacial Occidental meditations of life and loss. This is a director with an acute sense of balance.
Mother’s plot could be lifted from any gumshoe novel of the last 50 years. The dim-witted and slightly tipsy Do-joon (Won Bin) makes an ill-advised pass at a young girl whist staggering home. When she is found murdered the next day Do-joon is arrested and made to sign a confession, despite sloppy denials and even sloppier police work. His protective mother Hye-ja (Kim Hye-ja) steps in to make the case but neither police nor lawyers give a rats. The case is closed and Do-joon ambles off to prison. As the layers are revealed, notions of innocence and guilt are skewered, and the line between protection and criminal interference becomes evermore opaque. A pair of scenes toward the end of the film are staggering; quiet, simple and extraordinarily powerful pay-offs. No dramatic orchestral swells and/or doleful Oscar-baiting sobbing. Taut storytelling and eerie cinematography brilliantly capture the grey nothingness of a senseless crime in an unnamed city; it could be anywhere – and that’s the point. Won Bin and Kim Hye-ja were heaped with praise for their compelling performance – rightly so. Mother is one of the best of the year and Bong confirms his status as a world class director.
