"Mother": Realistic film noir masterpiece

Alanis 2021-12-27 08:01:06

Recently, I watched two Korean movies in a row, and they are definitely the two best Korean movies in 2009-"Bat" and "Mother". Both Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho are my two favorite Korean directors. These two directors represent the two extremes of Korean movies-Park Chan-wook represents the ultimate style and formalism, and Bong Joon-ho represents the ultimate realism. The two directors’ two films this year, the former’s "Bat" has been criticized and questioned in Korea, and won prizes in Europe and America, while the latter’s "Mother" has been well received in Korea and is particularly well received in the Asian market. It is favored by the Japanese market. These two Korean directors with very rich personal style characteristics basically represent the current highest level of Korean movies. However, compared to Park Chan-wook's formalism, I still prefer Bong Joon-ho's realism.




Bong Joon-ho has said that he wants to make a "poor and beautiful crime movie", with a classic crime movie like "Memories of Murder" (at the same time showing the emotional life and stories of small people under the changes of the big age), and with "Monster" Such a set of Hollywood blockbuster-style story routines and entertainment, while satirizing the work of various power classes in Korean society (Hollywood story shell, absolutely the core theme of South Korea). Feng Junhao's films do not have any exaggerated and gorgeous formalism packaging, but are full of more realistic attacks on the mainstream social rights class. The most important thing is that compared to Park Chan-wook, Bong Joon-ho is a more story-telling director. I don’t remember which European film critic said that a good movie should have a good story. It means that the quality of storytelling directly affects the quality of the movie, and the essence of the movie should be to express the real life state, so as to tell a good story through the form of visual language, and the good story naturally comes from the full and true figure.



In my opinion, Bong Joon-ho is such a story-telling director. There are too many films and televisions about maternal love and mother-child relationship, ranging from family conflicts to challenging ethical incest (for example, a TV series adapted from a classic novel of Six or Six) "Double-sided tape" looks at the story of the whole family from the mother-child relationship, such as the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. For example, the European film "Mother, the Limit of Love", which shows the incest relationship between mother and child, and the horror film "Grace", which shows the extreme perverted maternal love). In Feng Junhao’s story, this mother-child relationship is shown three-dimensionally and multi-dimensionally because of a bizarre murder case. There is no family conflict or incest. It is the proposition of the relationship between a pair of dependent mothers and children, and then On this basis, he told a murder story full of suspense. Bong Joon-ho is too smart. He will definitely not simply express the relationship between mother and child, but use the crime theme he is best at shooting and telling about the relationship between mother and child. When a weak and flimsy mother discovers that her son has been involved in a bizarre murder for no reason, the strong maternal instinct awakens the most powerful protection mechanism in the mother’s soul, and the resulting stories and contradictions are naturally rich. When you get up, the classes and phenomena involved are also enriched. On this basis, a good story and a good perspective can dig out more possibilities for the characters, and the characters appear full, rich and three-dimensional.



In "Mother", Feng Junhao's guide continues to target the class that has the least right to speak, and at the same time continues to ridicule the power class ruthlessly. His guide has therefore become a way for him to express his right to speak. A bizarre murder case has occurred. The incompetence of the police representing justice is fully reflected in the hastily handling of the case in order to quickly close the case. Everything is done according to the procedure, and it is almost necessary to give A general explanation from the public and the media. In the end, the poor and the lower class, who have no right to speak or even money to afford lawyers, naturally become the perpetrators of the murder case and also the victims. The son and mother in the story represent most of the poor and lower-class people, who have no money, no power, and no right to speak. After the murder occurred, those in power naturally did not give them any help they should have, at most some insignificant mercy, or even persecution. Although as the story progresses, we know the final truth of the murder, but the mother and her son still Under the lens of Bong Junhao, he became the most powerless class who could only resist by himself. It's sympathetic, but it's thought-provoking. Regardless of the subordinate part of the class, human nature is the thought-provoking part of this movie.



The mother is the most brilliant character in the whole movie. Kim Hye-ja's perfect acting skills interpret a mother who is weak and poor on the outside, but is strong and stubborn on the inside to do inhuman deeds to love her son. Her emotional development has also become a major clue in the film. From the beginning, when faced with the reality that the only child who was dependent on each other and had an IQ close to the mentally retarded became a murder suspect inexplicably, she was at a loss and even through some so-called "bribery behaviors" in the eyes of others. To persuade the police to let her son go. When she was forced to desperate, she began to do some dangerous things. She explored the room of her son’s friend. She used the money to buy the "help" of her son’s friend. She walked alone looking for the murder. On the road to the real murderer, her emotions are like a parabola, rising from the straight line at the beginning to the highest point. Because the love for her son can be said to be the ultimate unreserved love, she was almost close to the edge of madness, until finally she walked to the truth, the protection mechanism brought by the powerful maternal love broke out with the most amazing power, she Desperate to lose reason and destroy the final truth. The mother's emotional development and behavior have become more shocking than the girl’s doomsday in the film. It is embarrassing but empathetic because of the truth.



Putting aside her identity as a mother, she is just a woman, and we can probably guess her past from the story, because she had to become a single mother for some reason. Faced with a difficult life situation, she also chose to die with her son, and this behavior may have caused her son to become a mature man with normal physical development, but his IQ is as weak as a child. Feng Junhao let his son become the master of memory. He reappeared from time to time and became the leader of a past event that his mother was unwilling to face. Therefore, the two main characters in the story of Feng Junhao, the relationship between mother and son is rooted and intimate like other ordinary mother and son, but they have different past and emotional haze. And a bizarre murder case involving the son ignited the fuse of the contradiction between the two and the display of more possibilities.

In this film, there is no pure distinction between good and evil, nor is there a heroic character who can save this poor mother. All the characters are typical small people from real life, only for their own benefit. The whole film has suffocating despair, and it also has a real exposure to the darkness of human nature that people can't bear to witness. The whole process of watching the movie makes people feel sad. Until the end of the film's story, I learned all the truth about the incident, and I felt sad in my heart. The mother faced not only the ugliness of society, but also her own inner struggle and evil side. The story ended, but life continued.

Bong Joon-ho’s movie still didn’t disappoint me. It was still a stark performance and attack on various levels of the world, it was still a perfect storytelling skill controlled by rhythm and strength, it was still a full and nutritious character, and it was still full. Full of feelings, this is Bong Joon-ho's movie.

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Extended Reading
  • Marion 2022-03-27 09:01:12

    Once love is paranoid, it is terrible, even great maternal love is no exception.

  • Celestine 2022-04-23 07:03:03

    Spinning and peeling cocoons, layer by layer. Bong Joon Ho is so good at telling stories!