Mother - Hell hath no fury

    Hell hath no fury like a .....mother's love. Slightly unusual that someone who never had a mother watches a two-hour South Korean film called 'Mother' by Bong Joon-ho. An alternative film deserves an alternative review surely! I accompanied a friend who wanted to see the film at the last minute and I had no idea what it was about. Bradford on Avon Film Society is arguably one of the best in the country and its mainly middle class late middle aged audience was full capacity at the screening of this tense psychological thriller. 

   The film is certainly shocking and disturbing not least in exposing taboos such as a retarded man in his early twenties sleeping with his mother, although clearly it emphasised the point he was still a child. The sub titles use the word 'retard' but this is a taboo in Britain so I use the adjective for want of a better description for someone of a simple-minded disposition (I think we call it 'learning difficulties'). In contrast the mother has a powerful mind and a relentless determination to prove the innocence of her somewhat rebellious son accused of murdering a young woman, making Agatha Christie's Poirot look tamely bourgeois in the search for who dunnit. 

  The film is also about justice (coming from unexpected quarters) and as a piece of film making I think is a work of art with very powerful imagery and an Oscar deserving performance by its 59 year old star Kim Hye-ja. There is a powerful surrealistic opening scene of her dancing in a field and as the cameras slowly zoomed in I thought this was a 45 year old woman with the trim and lithe body of a 30 year old. The only part I found predictable in the film was the return to this scene near the end of the story as part of the film genre was flashback and as a film maker myself I could see it coming. 

   To articulate the story and give a clever conventional opinion its best to read the Guardian review by Peter Bradshaw and there is a very high probability he had a mum so I will try to keep this review relevant to my unusual perspective that I watched it through the eyes of someone not having a mum and relying on a fair bit of guess work about what exactly the emotions flying around are all about. Perhaps I am writing this in the hope that somebody else of my disposition might read this!      

   The most powerful scene for me was when the mother discovers her son really did kill the girl (albeit accidentally) and she batters to death the person who witnessed it as he is about to phone the police. She uses a King Dick and although this film has mildly pornographic content a 'King Dick' to the technically unititiated is a giant adjustable spanner used for farm machinery. This scene is more graphic than the nubile sex scene which is sparing to the largely senior audience - graphic in its shocking sound effects - you almost feel the blows. This scene is so ferocious and the subsequent act of the mother setting fire to the house and burning all evidence of the witness illustrates the power of a mother. Perhaps power is a limited word as it gets mixed up with control and a whole gammit of roles and emotions a mother has. Paradoxically whilst in Western culture the mother has more legal rights to underpin her power, this Korean woman was up against corruption in the legal system and public ridicule in her endless pursuit to protect her boy at any cost. No wonder many western women accuse their men of having limited emotional intelligence when the mother, like a hand being cut off, retains the power of the umbilical cord throughout her life?      

   Back to the plot, the son in his simplicity roams around the burned ruins of the house his mother has set alight to remove all evidence of her crime and he finds her metal box containing her accupunture needles (she is an unlicenced practitioner) and right at the end of the film my only confusion is when she can bear the emotions no more she gets on a bus full of dancing parents of sons like her own and uses a needle on her amazingly nubile thigh (for a 59 year old woman!) and I thought she was going to commit suicide but instead she triggered a happiness nerve in  the brain and the film ends with her dancing with the others. 

  From the perspective of my own youth-dominated culture I questioned why the leading character was a woman of 59 with a son of around 21 (I thought having children later in life was a luxury of First World countries?), but perhaps the lines on her face and the experience an older woman carried added to the poignancy. Certainly the face of Kim Hye-ja was amazingly expressive. I like a film that has a really strong central character (such as Gene Hackman in The French Connection) and although my cinema companion (a mother herself) thought the film was ghastly I can say I would uncomfortably watch it again.  
   Although the film was about a mother's protection of her son, the lengths she would go to, and paradoxically the ultimate powerlessness she had. If the film has any message it is always carry your acupunture kit with you if the pain, guilt and anguish gets too much.  

   
The guardian Review of 'Mother' by Peter Bradshaw can be found at:

www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/aug/19/mother-review