Monday, March 15, 2010

Bong Joon-ho 's Mother in 150 Words or Less

.

The first half is plagued with the sort of bizarre storytelling quirks that I felt railroaded The Host - there's a thin line between making your characters quirky and making them so off-putting and stupid we wish they'd die, apparently, at least where Bong is concerned. But the second half, once the terribly annoying son recedes into the background and Mother herself takes over, is mostly very good. Some people praise Bong's films for their wildly shifting tones - one second it's melodrama, the next straight up horror, then suddenly slapstick - but it leaves me less on edge than it does get on my nerves. It gets in the way of me caring. That said, the last 40 minutes or so of Mother, I cared. Mostly due to Hye-ja Kim as Mother - she's as terrific as everybody's been saying. And it's beautifully shot.
.

No comments: