Mother (2009)

After her son is jailed for a girl’s brutal murder, a mother does everything in her power to prove his innocence.

The mixed feelings begin from the opening shot and extend all the way through the first act. The music, the acting, the character development, the mother/son relationship, and all utterances and actions make one question why IMDb describes it as a crime, drama, and mystery. Twenty minutes into it, it starts looking that way, but still… Yoon Do-joon’s mental disability and the way his surrounding environment and authorities perceive him make it unclear what it really is.

The role of his mother, though, somehow, despite the odd human behaviour, intensifies the drama in the second act and turns it into a whodunit with the stamp of Bong Joon Ho. After Memories of Murder (2003) and The Host (2006) and before Snowpiercer (2013), Okja (2017), and Parasite (2019), Bong Joon Ho feels confident directing Mother, most certainly knowing that unpredictable feelings will be evoked. Definitely not for everyone, but it’s the kind of cinema that allows Westerners, through art, to discover a variety of cultural idiosyncrasies so different to their own.

Far too many years ago, someone told me that if I ended up in hell, my mother would be the only one to find a way to sneak out of heaven, descent, and trade places with me, so it is she that withstands eternal suffering instead of me. Mother ends up being the soul-crushing drama that emphasises the mother’s sacrifice, loneliness, and the unbearable task of carrying a personal cross all the way to the top of Golgotha.

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