In its procedural pacing and small-town communal vibe, Bong Joon-ho's new film Mother, written by the director and Park Eun-kyo, recalls the South Korean helmer's earlier triumph Memories of Murder. But in this tale of maternal instincts at the brink, family is no less a rampaging force than in Bong's The Host, where three siblings inflicted far more damage on each other and themselves than any galloping, eructing mutant-tadpole could.
Only slightly less unsettling than the amphibious creature of the earlier film, single mother Hye-ja (Kim Hye-ja) uses bottles of ginseng extract and free acupuncture as bargaining chips for clues when she begins investigating the bludgeoning of a promiscuous schoolgirl. The police, employing coercion and bullying, have pinned the crime on her son Do-joon, played brilliantly by model-heartthrob Won Bin. Visibly slow and prone to eruptions of violence, Do-joon can't remember what happened to the young schoolgirl he followed after a night of drinking, but Hye-ja is sure it has something to do with Do-joon's "bad seed" best friend Jin-tae (Jin Goo), a local hustler and ex-soldier.
At first, Bong's film resembles an overprotective mother's search for justice in a town of shirt-and-tie swindlers. Things begin, magnificently, with an altercation between Jin-tae, Do-joon, and a group of businessmen after a hit-and-run. Later, the cops bully the illiterate Do-joon into signing a bunko confession; a sleazy lawyer, hired by Hye-ja, ignores the case before striking a deal with a few corrupt friends to get Do-joon a shorter prison stay. But as the film moves on, it becomes chillingly clear that these men, corrupted by money, power and influence, are not the problem. The monstrous acts both revealed and enacted in the film's second half stem from a twisted psychological terrain, and Mother, through several unsettling reveals, suggests that the countless unfounded fears Hye-ja harbors about others are reflections of what she is capable of.
Hye-ja is not Tilda Swinton's crafty mother hen in The Deep End -- neither, for that matter, is she Mrs. Gump. Her closest frame of reference would be Kathleen Turner's butchering homemaker from John Waters's Serial Mom. To find fault with Do-joon is to find fault with mom, and Hye-ja's startling portrayal is filled with uneasy smiles, rattled gestures, and jittery encounters with drivers, children, and a host of others. Everyone seems to either coddle the mother or ignore her, perhaps because they are aware of her dark impulses.
From the local photo-shop clerk to the lead detective to the victim's drunken granny, the people that surround Hye-ja form a varied community, and this is where Bong excels. The director creates complex studies of people in crisis, but does not hinge story solely on the central predicament. Morally, emotionally and aesthetically, his films are carefully layered and sprawling in view; Mother demands repeated viewing to completely realize the behavioral and dialectic nuance ever-present in Bong's craft. Fault may be found in the transitions -- they come off a bit loose -- or the film's convoluted moral center, but Mother is a troubling and ambiguous thriller that conveys a deeply held fear: That the good we perceive we are doing is ultimately utter ruin.
AKA Madeo
Only slightly less unsettling than the amphibious creature of the earlier film, single mother Hye-ja (Kim Hye-ja) uses bottles of ginseng extract and free acupuncture as bargaining chips for clues when she begins investigating the bludgeoning of a promiscuous schoolgirl. The police, employing coercion and bullying, have pinned the crime on her son Do-joon, played brilliantly by model-heartthrob Won Bin. Visibly slow and prone to eruptions of violence, Do-joon can't remember what happened to the young schoolgirl he followed after a night of drinking, but Hye-ja is sure it has something to do with Do-joon's "bad seed" best friend Jin-tae (Jin Goo), a local hustler and ex-soldier.
At first, Bong's film resembles an overprotective mother's search for justice in a town of shirt-and-tie swindlers. Things begin, magnificently, with an altercation between Jin-tae, Do-joon, and a group of businessmen after a hit-and-run. Later, the cops bully the illiterate Do-joon into signing a bunko confession; a sleazy lawyer, hired by Hye-ja, ignores the case before striking a deal with a few corrupt friends to get Do-joon a shorter prison stay. But as the film moves on, it becomes chillingly clear that these men, corrupted by money, power and influence, are not the problem. The monstrous acts both revealed and enacted in the film's second half stem from a twisted psychological terrain, and Mother, through several unsettling reveals, suggests that the countless unfounded fears Hye-ja harbors about others are reflections of what she is capable of.
Hye-ja is not Tilda Swinton's crafty mother hen in The Deep End -- neither, for that matter, is she Mrs. Gump. Her closest frame of reference would be Kathleen Turner's butchering homemaker from John Waters's Serial Mom. To find fault with Do-joon is to find fault with mom, and Hye-ja's startling portrayal is filled with uneasy smiles, rattled gestures, and jittery encounters with drivers, children, and a host of others. Everyone seems to either coddle the mother or ignore her, perhaps because they are aware of her dark impulses.
From the local photo-shop clerk to the lead detective to the victim's drunken granny, the people that surround Hye-ja form a varied community, and this is where Bong excels. The director creates complex studies of people in crisis, but does not hinge story solely on the central predicament. Morally, emotionally and aesthetically, his films are carefully layered and sprawling in view; Mother demands repeated viewing to completely realize the behavioral and dialectic nuance ever-present in Bong's craft. Fault may be found in the transitions -- they come off a bit loose -- or the film's convoluted moral center, but Mother is a troubling and ambiguous thriller that conveys a deeply held fear: That the good we perceive we are doing is ultimately utter ruin.
AKA Madeo
