(Madman)

Strange relations

Korean director Bong Joon-Ho’s follow-up to the excellent monster flick The Host (2006) looks like a murder mystery on the surface, but quickly subverts genre stereotypes as much as its predecessor. Kim Hye-ja is the worrying Mother of the title, a widow with an acupuncture business; her apron-strung son Do-Joon (Bin Won) is a gormless 20-something with mild intellectual disabilities, one prone to accidents and memory loss. When a local schoolgirl turns up dead, positioned on top of a building as though on display, Do-Joon is arrested. Witnessed following the victim, he’s interrogated and ends up confusedly signing a confession. Convinced that her simple, harmless son is innocent, Hye-Ja sets out to prove it, pursuing the truth to whatever extreme she deems necessary. While it might sound as though the only unusual twist here is a mother taking the detective’s role, Bong Joon-Ho ensures that there’s nothing typical about this film – and little that you might recognise from Western spins on similar plots. Blackly humourous and with immaculate acting from the fiery Kim Hye-ja, Mother is a dark gem, filled with gloriously oddball character moments, unexpected revelations and deft hints of a much larger story under the surface. From it’s first mystifying moments, as Hye-Ja sways and dances in a field wearing a look of glazed unconcern, to it’s satisfyingly ambiguous ending – also featuring dancing, albeit of a more frenzied kind – Mother offers originality and surprises throughout. It’s beautifully filmed, entertainingly bizarre, and less a mystery than a warped fable about parental concern. It’s also a prime candidate for an American remake, seeing as – like Let The Right One In for example – it’s better than half the genre stuff coming out of the States.

****

TOPHER HEALY

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