Sorry, Park Chan-Wook, Korea just made the exact right choice and picked, Bong Joon-Ho’s “Mother” to represent the country at the Oscars this year in the Best Foreign Film category.
Chan-Wook’s vampire tale, “Thirst,” was submitted for consideration ((according to a jury, the pic was “unfit for Oscar’s popular tastes”)) along with five other Korean pictures, but Joon-Ho’s creepy and humorous Kafka/Hitchcock-esque murder mystery took the coveted slot instead and we must say we’re incredibly happy as “Mother” was one of our favorite films from the 2009 Cannes Film Festival line-up (even if it wasn’t quite flawless, it still sticks with us deeply).
“Mother” centers on a creepy oedipal relationship between a lonely, smothering mother and her near-retarded 20-something son that is set into disarray when the young boy is accused of a murder and the matriarch is compelled to do everything in her power to prove his innocence and solve the crime if necessary.
Perhaps this will finally prompt some U.S. distribution company to finally put it out, hello?? It’s probably the one major film from Cannes other than Gasper Noe’s “Enter the Void,” that doesn’t have a U.S. release yet. Surely, this move will precipitate some indie company like Strand or Palisades Tartan to release the film. Maybe even Sony Pictures Classics who are generally friendly to wide-appeal foreign films? Let’s hope it gets as wide a release as possible. [THR]