Screen Machine

Review: MIFF09 review: MOTHER (dir. Bong Joon-ho)

I think with Mother, his fourth feature length work, Bong Joon-ho cements his place as my favourite working director of any nationality. I’ve seen him compared (on the basis of his two previous works; The Host, and Memories of Murder) with Spielberg and Hitchcock, and unlike most such analogies this description manages to be both utterly foolish and somewhat apt. It’s easy to scramble for such names when discussing Bong’s work for two reasons. First, because despite defying most generic narrative descriptions, Bong’s films nevertheless feel like they belong in the thriller tradition in which those two directors made their names. Secondly, because it’s rare to find a director so utterly, even supernaturally, in control of his material, and with such an unerring grasp of timing and audience response. Scene after scene unfolds with strange tonal and formal zigzags, but Bong never seems anything less than confident in his ability to string the audience along. And unlike most other directors who are intent on keeping the audience in their palm (think of, perhaps, Michael Bay or Peter Jackson), Bong’s films feel totally effortless.

While Mother, which follows the frenetic attempts of a woman to exonerate her simple, sweet son of the brutal murder of a teenage girl, may present less immediately engaging, or obvious thematic subtext than the law and order and institutional indictments of The Host and Memories, I feel confident that repeated viewings will illuminate a critical portrait of contemporary Korean family and social dynamics. Regardless, the film’s formal thrills more than make up for this on first viewing. Also interesting is the way Bong recycles scenarios and dynamics from his two previous works: the endlessly compassionate parent guiltily caring for a mentally diminished child; an indifferent police force coercing culpability for a murder out of a simple man-child; staged public re-enactments of crime scenes; unconventional families and absent parents.

Equally exciting is the way Bong carefully replays and recycles moments two or three times, tracking their changing significances. It’s such a simple narrative trick, and often the hallmark of a well-structured script, that I’m surprised it’s something more directors don’t utilise. In particular, observe the progress of a golf club, a box of acupuncture needles, a little-known pressure point on the thigh, and the way a certain name appears; twice humorously, once tragically.

The film also contains my very favourite single shot of the entire festival, perhaps of the entire year. The mother has snuck into the house of her son’s callous friend, suspecting him of framing her child. When he returns home with his girlfriend she is forced to hide in the closet, clutching a piece of potentially damning evidence. Bong plays out a scene of high tension as the two lie post-coital on the floor, and the mother must navigate her way past a forest of half-empty water bottles. As one tips over, Bong, almost outrageously, cuts to a close detail of the water slowly seeping towards the man’s dangling, twitching fingers: so simple, so mundanely hilarious, so stunning. And it got the best audience reaction I heard all MIFF.

James Douglas is a regular contributor to Screen Machine. He is currently finishing his Honours in Cinema Studies at the University of Melbourne.

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