YONHAP NEWS

(Movie Review) Motherhood gone awry shows offensive streak of human nature

By Shin Hae-in
SEOUL, May 21 (Yonhap) -- A mother's love is divine, but only for her child. Protecting one's own child sometimes means harming another's -- a hoggish aspect of human virtue that often goes unnoticed, and even condoned.

Following his record-breaking monster movie "The Host" -- the first South Korean film to surpass the 10-million viewer mark at the domestic box office -- director Bong Joon-ho has returned with "Mother," a haunting noir that became his latest Cannes film fest entry. It premiered in the non-competition Un Certain Regard section.

Like his previous features, which offers riotous entertainment at first glance, "Mother" professes to be a simple enough tear-shedding ode to mothers featuring a widow's desperate search for the killer that framed her mentally handicapped son for a brutal murder.

But at some point during its lengthy two hour-running time, the film suddenly points at socio-political and psychological commentaries that leave viewers in shock and goose bumps long after the film's final images have faded.

Do-jun (Won-bin), a shy and reclusive 28-year-old, lives in a small shady provincial Korean town with his mother Hye-ja (Kim Hye-ja), whose only purpose in life is looking after her mentally challenged son.

   When a horrific murder of a high school girl occurs in this normally quiet town, police pin the murder on Do-jun, who was a crime scene witness and has no alibi.

   Convinced of her son's innocence and angered by authorities' unsympathetic response to his vulnerable condition, Hye-ja turns first to a pricey, arrogant lawyer and then to her son's seemingly depraved friend who advises her not to trust anyone and go find the killer herself.

   Taking matters into her own hands, the petit, sad-eyed woman lands upon dark secrets involving the murdered girl and the villagers. Meanwhile, encouraged by his mother to jog his memories of the night of the crime, Do-jun is reminded of a discomforting incident that led to Hye-ja's excessive maternal devotion.

   "I wanted to stretch motherhood to the extreme and see how far it can go in a cinematic reality," Bong said after the film's Seoul preview Wednesday night. "This film was a new challenge to me in a sense that I touched on the strongest force and the core of human relationships."

   While never abandoning his characteristic craftsmanship to stay dark, brisk and suspenseful, with twists manifesting at the exact moments to sustain the tension, Bong certainly appears to have tested new limits in "Mother," continuously questioning whether maternal devotion really take precedence over all else.

Although "Mother" slots in somewhere between the large-scale and absurdist elements of "The Host" and the plot-driven and realistic "Memories of Murder," it still seems to fall short of being the 40-year-old Korean auteur's best film to date -- it is too lengthy and its plot has holes unfilled even after the credits roll.

   But considering "Mother" is only a fourth feature to his credit, the film does help solidify Bong's status as one of the gifted directors of his generation in and out of Korea.

   While still looking to the decades-old genre of film noir for inspiration, Bong chooses to create a modern aesthetic saturated with moral gravity, relying on his talent to stay focused and composed through the end.

   Opening with a surrealist and somewhat hilarious sequence of the fickle heroine making odd dance moves in the middle of a plain, "Mother" will leave viewers pondering about its implications long after the film's haunting final images have faded.

   The film, applauded as a "strong Hitchcockian thriller" and "worth acceptance to official competition selection" after its Cannes premiere last week, will hit the local theaters at May 28.

   hayney@yna.co.kr
(END)