Screen Scene: “Mother”

The opening scene of “Mother” shows the title character dancing in a blue-tinged field, in a simultaneously uncomfortable and beautiful moment that sets the pace for the rest of the film. Korean director Bong Joon-Ho carefully crafted this fast-paced thriller, and the effect is consistently surprising and mesmerizing.

The film immediately engages us as it introduces the few characters that compose the backbone of this drama. An aging mother slices dried herbs while watching her son across the street as he plays with a dog and his friend. We never learn the mother’s name, a fact that suits her self-sacrificing character. Her son, Yoon Do-joon, is an attractive kid with mental disabilities in his mid-20s who follows his buddy Jin-tae without question.

Mother slices her finger the instant her son gets hit by a Mercedes while playing in the street. She cries out, ignoring her own cut, and races after her son. Do-joon and Jin-tae escape her shouts and chase the hit-and-run driver to the town’s golf course, which leads to a beautifully shot confrontation between the boys and a golf cart full of professors.

The tone of the movie stays tense, and we watch Do-joon later that night as he tries to flirt with girls while awaiting Jin-tae at a bar. After the bar closes, he drunkenly stumbles home alone and falls asleep beside his mother. The next morning Do-joon gets accused of striking a young schoolgirl with a concrete block, murdering her. Like most of the townspeople, Mother is convinced that Do-joon’s subsequent arrest was the result of mistaken identity.

Instead of accepting the unfortunate series of errors that lead to her son’s incarceration, Mother uses any means possible to try and free her son.

Though she is extremely poor, she hires the most expensive lawyer in the town. He takes one look at the twisted relationship between Do-Joon and his mother and quickly leaves for a “business emergency.”

Joon-Ho manages to toe the line when it comes to the bond between Do-Joon and Mother; it’s creepy but never incestuous, and we understand Do-joon’s annoyance with his mother’s overbearing tendencies.

When Mother attends the funeral of the murdered girl, she begins to argue against her son’s conviction. It is almost relieving when the girl’s mourners slap Mother across the face, finally shutting her up.

But Kim Hye-ja’s portrayal of Mother is not one-sided. As the movie goes on, she reveals a rich portrait of a woman who tries hard to do well but takes meddling to the extreme. We’ve all experienced it, and that’s what makes this character so haunting. She can’t help but leave a wake of destruction as she attempts to prove her son’s innocence.

It all comes down to the sacrifices of motherhood, and she does as much as she can to find the girl’s real killer. We begin to understand this woman, who practices acupuncture without a license to be able to afford meager meals and herbs. The initial irritation and hatred we can sense from Do-Joon transforms into a sort of pity for this misguided elderly woman.

Through the Plexiglass partition, she emphasizes to her son, “You and me are one. We only have each other.” The statement embodies Mother’s life and mind; she cannot exist knowing that her son is not free.

The movie takes the audience on a beautiful, haunting journey through the difficulties of life for everyone in the town. Many scenes will leave you chilled to the bone, and the creepy, dreamlike quality makes this film an eerie success. Every scene will have you on the edge of your seat, and Joon-Ho manages to make the dullest elements of life sparkle. This disturbingly well-crafted picture will stay in your mind for a long time to come.

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