Keswick Film Club - Mother

Synopsis

Following his critical successes with The Host (2006) and Memories of Murder (2003), Joon-Ho Bong continues his perceptive evocation of a rural community hiding dark secrets. Do-jun is the 27-year- old mentally challenged son who still lives with his mother (Hye-Ja Kim’s remarkable tour de force) in a small, ordinary South Korean town. Bong weaves an engrossing portrait of the feisty Korean widow who is unafraid of crossing a few moral boundaries in her attempt to prove her emotionally fragile son innocent of murder. Her maternal instinct comes into play with fearsome intensity when she finds that only she can clear his name. A fascinating fight for her version of justice, the film is also a superb murder mystery, with twists coming thick and fast at exactly the right moments.