Post by klep on Feb 24, 2020 7:53:41 GMT -6
MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 2/24: Mother (2009)
ASIAN FILM WEEK!
It's unsurprising that a Bong Joon-ho movie would deal with class. It's a common thread throughout his work, examining the obstacles and prejudices the poor face versus the wealthy. He loves to explore how those class differences drive people to act in different ways both independently and with respect to each other.
In Mother we see how these barriers come into play with the criminal justice system. People who followed the Parasite press tour will recall Bong saying he was trying to make a film about South Korea with his Best Picture-winner, not realizing its more general applicability. I felt similarly about Mother, which illustrates disparities in the criminal justice system that sound very much like those we face in the US.
Yoon Do-joon (Won Bin) is a poor young man who seems to have a mental disability. He is often confused, and seems to have a lot of trouble with his memory. His mother (Kim Hye-ja, credited only as 'Mother') is very protective of him, so when he is pressured to sign a confession for a murder based entirely on circumstantial evidence, she takes matters into her own hands to look for the real killer.
Along the way there's multiple ways that the criminal justice system fails Do-joon. He is interrogated without a lawyer present (South Korea's laws with regards to such matters are similar to the United States). The lawyer Mother eventually acquires for apparently much less than his usual fee for these cases is minimally interested in helping her and seems more interested in pleading Do-joon out quickly than in making sure justice is done.
Mother is driven not just by maternal instinct, but also by guilt. We eventually learn when Do-joon was a small child, in a state of desperation Mother attempted to kill him with insecticide as part of a murder-suicide. Whether that was also responsible for Do-joon's difficulties is unclear, but it's certainly an implication. At this point we fully expect the film to take a familiar path as Mother uncovers who was really responsible for Ah-jung's (Moon Hee-ra) death.
But as is usual with Bong's films, Mother takes an unexpected and more unsettling trajectory. The obvious suspect is Do-joon's friend Jin-tae (Jin Goo), who we see early on taking advantage of Do-joon's poor recall for his own benefit. He's suspiciously absent the night of the murder, when he'd apparently made plans to hang out with Do-joon. But while he may be a self-serving jerk much of the time, Mother learns to her embarrassment that he is innocent, and he helps her with her investigation.
Nor indeed is the culprit the junk collector (Lee Young-suk) Do-joon eventually remembers seeing the night of the murder. When Mother catches up with him, he describes what he saw that night, and we learn that Do-joon truly was responsible - he threw a rock at the victim after she insulted him. Wracked with panic, guilt, and fear Mother kills him to prevent his knowledge coming out and later allows a truly innocent man to take Do-joon's place.
One of the most interesting things Bong Joon-ho does is that while he illustrates the problems that class inequality creates, he doesn't portray the downtrodden as saints. They often do things which are bad or even heinous out of necessity or desperation. Mother's poverty nearly drove her to kill her son, and she had to grapple with that guilt for decades - a guilt which drove her to murder someone else and leave an innocent man to rot in prison. At no point does Bong suggest that her actions are justified. Not only is it clear that the police accidentally got the right man in Do-joon, but Mother's own guilt over her actions is clear and overwhelming.
But even so, Bong remains sympathetic to the downtrodden, giving them bittersweet endings. Mother succeeds in getting Do-joon out of prison, though his knowledge of his own or his mother's culpability remains unsettlingly unclear. And Mother, for her part, finds a way to escape - using acupuncture to free herself from her painful memories. Perhaps someday her deeds will catch up with her, perhaps the effects of the acupuncture will fade. But for a moment, at least, she gets to dance.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 3/2: Rebecca
ADAPTATION WEEK!
Could there ever be another woman like Rebecca? Next week we'll find out as we discuss Alfred Hitchcock's collaboration with legendary producer David O. Selznick in the commercial and critical smash hit that was Rebecca. This adaptation of the Daphne du Maurier novel finds Joan Fontaine as a young woman who falls for a man only to find herself living in the shadow of his dead wife. Rebecca is available for rent on Amazon Video.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 2/25: Thelma & Louise
Kicking off a pairing about women banding together in a hostile world, next week the podcast crew tackles Ridley Scott's beloved road trip film Thelma & Louise. Come join our discussion next week; Thelma & Louise is available for rent in the usual places.
ASIAN FILM WEEK!
It's unsurprising that a Bong Joon-ho movie would deal with class. It's a common thread throughout his work, examining the obstacles and prejudices the poor face versus the wealthy. He loves to explore how those class differences drive people to act in different ways both independently and with respect to each other.
In Mother we see how these barriers come into play with the criminal justice system. People who followed the Parasite press tour will recall Bong saying he was trying to make a film about South Korea with his Best Picture-winner, not realizing its more general applicability. I felt similarly about Mother, which illustrates disparities in the criminal justice system that sound very much like those we face in the US.
Yoon Do-joon (Won Bin) is a poor young man who seems to have a mental disability. He is often confused, and seems to have a lot of trouble with his memory. His mother (Kim Hye-ja, credited only as 'Mother') is very protective of him, so when he is pressured to sign a confession for a murder based entirely on circumstantial evidence, she takes matters into her own hands to look for the real killer.
Along the way there's multiple ways that the criminal justice system fails Do-joon. He is interrogated without a lawyer present (South Korea's laws with regards to such matters are similar to the United States). The lawyer Mother eventually acquires for apparently much less than his usual fee for these cases is minimally interested in helping her and seems more interested in pleading Do-joon out quickly than in making sure justice is done.
Mother is driven not just by maternal instinct, but also by guilt. We eventually learn when Do-joon was a small child, in a state of desperation Mother attempted to kill him with insecticide as part of a murder-suicide. Whether that was also responsible for Do-joon's difficulties is unclear, but it's certainly an implication. At this point we fully expect the film to take a familiar path as Mother uncovers who was really responsible for Ah-jung's (Moon Hee-ra) death.
But as is usual with Bong's films, Mother takes an unexpected and more unsettling trajectory. The obvious suspect is Do-joon's friend Jin-tae (Jin Goo), who we see early on taking advantage of Do-joon's poor recall for his own benefit. He's suspiciously absent the night of the murder, when he'd apparently made plans to hang out with Do-joon. But while he may be a self-serving jerk much of the time, Mother learns to her embarrassment that he is innocent, and he helps her with her investigation.
Nor indeed is the culprit the junk collector (Lee Young-suk) Do-joon eventually remembers seeing the night of the murder. When Mother catches up with him, he describes what he saw that night, and we learn that Do-joon truly was responsible - he threw a rock at the victim after she insulted him. Wracked with panic, guilt, and fear Mother kills him to prevent his knowledge coming out and later allows a truly innocent man to take Do-joon's place.
One of the most interesting things Bong Joon-ho does is that while he illustrates the problems that class inequality creates, he doesn't portray the downtrodden as saints. They often do things which are bad or even heinous out of necessity or desperation. Mother's poverty nearly drove her to kill her son, and she had to grapple with that guilt for decades - a guilt which drove her to murder someone else and leave an innocent man to rot in prison. At no point does Bong suggest that her actions are justified. Not only is it clear that the police accidentally got the right man in Do-joon, but Mother's own guilt over her actions is clear and overwhelming.
But even so, Bong remains sympathetic to the downtrodden, giving them bittersweet endings. Mother succeeds in getting Do-joon out of prison, though his knowledge of his own or his mother's culpability remains unsettlingly unclear. And Mother, for her part, finds a way to escape - using acupuncture to free herself from her painful memories. Perhaps someday her deeds will catch up with her, perhaps the effects of the acupuncture will fade. But for a moment, at least, she gets to dance.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 3/2: Rebecca
ADAPTATION WEEK!
Could there ever be another woman like Rebecca? Next week we'll find out as we discuss Alfred Hitchcock's collaboration with legendary producer David O. Selznick in the commercial and critical smash hit that was Rebecca. This adaptation of the Daphne du Maurier novel finds Joan Fontaine as a young woman who falls for a man only to find herself living in the shadow of his dead wife. Rebecca is available for rent on Amazon Video.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 2/25: Thelma & Louise
Kicking off a pairing about women banding together in a hostile world, next week the podcast crew tackles Ridley Scott's beloved road trip film Thelma & Louise. Come join our discussion next week; Thelma & Louise is available for rent in the usual places.