Mother (2010)

"Love is insanity."

I'm really enjoying South Korean cinema. I love the breaking of genre, the humor mixed with pathos and tragedy. And this is among the best that I've seen. And Kim Hye-ja is almost a miracle. I couldn't take a break from the movie because I couldn't stop watching her. Even the most insane actions were truly believable and larger than life. I also loved how the movie leads us to make character judgments on a couple people, only to find we were wrong about them, or at least that they were more complex than we originally thought. Every scene had a new surprise. What a wonderful, true, powerful film.

"Mother won't let anyone dirty you through."

The question I'm left with: is it possible for love to go too far? We talk about love being blind, but is blindness really something we want to strive for? This movie shows that even the purist form of love, the loyal love of a mother for her grown but developmentally disabled son, can cause harm to others. This is why love is only really love when it is focused not just on one person, but it is something we have for all people.

Again, this is an excellent film, both to watch and to consider.

4.5/5