Mother

Mother (2009)

This movie from director Joon-ho Bong (The Host) is about a mother and her son. Basically the story opens with an older woman caring for her son who is in his late 20s or early 30s. The boy, Yoon, is a bit slow and forgets things. This makes him very susceptible to suggestion and he is easily talked into “remembering” things he didn’t do. When a beautiful young girl is murdered in town the police focus on Yoon, and soon he has confessed. Only his mother believes him to be innocent and she sets out to find who the real killer is. This leads her into looking at the victim’s background, which has quite a few skeletons in it. Where will all this digging lead her? Does she find out who the killer is? I’m not going to spoil it here; you really need to check out this one for yourself.

And I do mean that. I wasn’t sure what I was going to get with this one. I really enjoyed The Host, but this is an entirely different kind of movie from that one. The story starts off a bit slow and I wasn’t sure where they were going with it. But this didn’t bug me that much because I found the characters so interesting. Actor Bin Won does a wonderful job playing Yoon. It would have been so easy to ham it up and make the mentally challenged character a joke, but Bin Won makes the character very sympathetic. This is important for the rest of the movie to work. That said the real heart and soul of the movie is Hye-ja Kim as Mother (really that is the character’s name). After Yoon is thrown in jail most of the movie focuses on her efforts to prove him innocent. There are some really sad and powerful moments with a lawyer that is taking her money and not doing much, a police force that determined Yoon was guilty and won’t listen to her. Basically because she and her son aren’t “important” people they are marginalized and discarded.

Now I’ve said that the movie starts off slow, but when the story starts rolling it is excellent. Even though the movie is over 2 hours long I was interested and entertained until the credits rolled. The story has several twists that will keep you guessing. But without giving anything away I have to say that the final big twist was very effective and will have me thinking about this movie for a very long time. This really in one of the better movies that I’ve seen in a long time and it doesn’t surprise me that this was the official entry to the academy awards from South Korea for best foreign language picture.

In addition to a very well written, acted, and directed movie I was blown away by the cinematography. This is also a beautifully shot movie. Right from the opening shots of the mother walking thru the field (which makes sense by the end of the movie, trust me) to the last shots on the bus the movie looks great. This is only enhanced by the Blu-Ray that was sent to me for review from Magnolia Pictures (check them out at http://www.magpictures.com/). This is one of those movies that looks great in high def. I recommend that everyone check out Mother, it really is a great time and a great Blu-Ray.

3 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer