Mother [Madeo] (Joon-ho, 2009)

[shariqq]

Mother (Madeo)
Joon-ho Bong | South Korea | 2009
129 mins



Joon-ho Bong has now made three feature-length films, each as good as the other. After making the lesser-known crime-investigation thriller Memories of Murder followed by the fantastic genre-defying monster movie The Host (played at DIFF ’06), Joon-ho brings us a movie that will remind fans of both. Mother is about a single-mother’s quest to save her only son, a simple fool whose memory regularly fails him, from a murder charge that lands him in prison. Knowing her son to be innocent, she sets out to prove his innocence, In order to do this, she must find the real killer. Not believing in following conventions, Joon-ho’s movie plays with themes and characters in a refreshing fashion, yet again proving how much we have become used to formulae and mediocrity. The soul of the movie is Bin Won’s fantastic performance as the mother. She manages to credibly convey the desperation of an anguished yet resolute mother. A note on the closing shot: it could easily have been cut short by a good ten-seconds for a conventional close. That it does not is Joon-ho’s masterstroke.

My rating --> 4 of 5

[madali]

Mother [Madeo] (Joon-ho Bong, 2009)

I wanted to really like this film. The director's "Memoirs of Murder" was one of THE best serial killer films ever made and "The Host" wasn't one of the best, but THE best, big monster genre film I've seen. "Mother" which was the follow-up to those two classics should have been an instant classic.

Wasn't impressed by it, and I wonder why. It has a good premise, mother's adult son is imprisoned for a murder she believes he didn't commit, and it's her motherly job to prove his innocence. I said a good premise, but when I write it like that, it sounds like a Hollywood cliché, maybe, if it’s a more courtroom drama, it stars Julia Roberts, if its action oriented, it probably has Angelina Jolie as the mother, and if its cartoonish action, then its Milla Jovovich slicing bad guys in half to prove her son's innocence. But its Joon-ho Bong and he takes a conventional plot and adds his own twist to it. The mother isn't a MILF, but looks like an actual mother, and the kind of mother than I never envision existing in incest porn stories.

I'm a bit upset that I didn't like it. I'll get a little personal here. I'm recently married and I watch films with my wife, who, like most girls (I said most, not all, stop being defensive, female movie buff nerd geek) isn't THAT much into movies. So I try to watch films with her and I think subconsciously I might feel a little bit guilty if the movie is slow, and that might affect my viewing of the film? I wish I could remove the traces of the film from my mind, ala "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", and rewatch this film again, this time alone, and compare my reviews. Would I have liked the film more then? Is there a me in a parallel universe that adores this film? And speaking of parallel universes, is there another para-me that has penises for fingers and is world's most terrifying super King, His Holiness, the Rapist Lord?

2/5

[shariqq]

I wish I could remove the traces of the film from my mind, ala "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", and rewatch this film again, this time alone, and compare my reviews. Would I have liked the film more then?

That would probably be true. I find myself being a little restless at points where a movie slows down when I watch it with my wife - this for movies which I have watched before and liked (including, and perhaps because of its pace).