Dir. Bong Joon-Ho
Year. 2009
Country: South Korea
Run-time: 128 mins
Rating: 15
Doors: 5.30 pm Film: 6 pm
10% discount on drinks. Just show your ticket at the bar.
Mother (2009) is one of Bong Joon Ho's masterpieces, alongside Palme d'Or and Oscar-winning Parasite, albeit one of his lesser known films. It contains the usual recipe for his success: a dramatic tale of social injustice mixed with a murder investigation/mystery. Mother stars Kim Hye Ja as a generous mother who tries to exonerate her mentally handicapped son of a murder and becomes increasingly obsessed.
Bong Joon Ho wrote this story for Kim Hye Ja, an iconic actress in Korea who symbolises the mother of the nation. "If she had said no, the film would not have been made". The union of these two Korean giants resulted in one of the strangest and best films of 2009.
““It is exotic, bizarre and challenging. Is it a dream? Or in some fantastical sense actually happening? And what kind of film can follow this? What kind of genre could absorb it? These unanswered questions are part of the film’s mystery, taking it above and beyond the normal thriller. I have a sinking feeling that this might be one of those films that gets a slack Hollywood remake. See the shimmeringly strange original now.” ”
“‘Mother’ is a curious film, alternately dazzling and frustrating.”
