Ok, arguably this U.S. poster (Movieline got first dibs) is not any different from the international posters we’ve already seen and in perhaps a way completely not special, but it give us a chance once more to discuss perhaps our favorite film from the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and perhaps more importantly, to encourage you to see the movie when it hits theaters in limited release on March 12.
It’s likely to have a small release with small expansion, so you’ll probably have to go out of your way to seek it out (or potentially drive rather far if it’s only in major markets), but let us attest it’s worth it.
“Mother” is the fourth film by South-Korean auteur Bong Joon-Ho, a director we including in our Breakthrough Director of 2009 piece — though arguably he broke through a long time ago with 2007’s “The Host,” a spine-tinglingly good monster movie that we included in our Best Films of 2007 piece (we also included his film, “Memories Of Murder” in our Best Films of 2005 feature). Suffice to say we sort of adore this vibrant filmmaker.
“Mother” is a high grade entertaining thriller that like many of the auteur’s films are hilarious, dark, disturbing, dramatic, absurdist and… he somehow manages to blend myriad tones together without delivering films that are a jumbled mess (in fact they are largely transcendent and sublime).
The picture 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.
Here’s the English-language trailer if you missed it when we posted it last year. Again, mark March 12 on your calendar and try and track this one down. When it hits via Magnolia Pictures.