Mother 📍
Happy Monday! I hope you had a great weekend and a happy belated Mother’s Day to all moms and mom-figures in the world. Before we get started, don’t forget to subscribe:
In honor, today’s movie is Mother (2009), streaming on Hulu, the fourth film by the Oscar-winning director of Parasite Bong Joon-ho. This black comedy crime thriller is the film that would launch Bong’s career into the stratosphere as it premiered at Cannes and won actress Kim Hye-ja the LAFCA award for Best Actress. Had this premiered after Parasite, I think she’d walk away an Oscar winner.
Here’s what it’s about: An unnamed Mother (Kim Hye-ja) spends her days running an apothecary, giving illegal acupuncture treatments, and looking after her mildly intellectually disabled adult son Do-joon (Won Bin). Though he doesn’t let that stop him from trying to live his own life. After a girl (Moon Hee-ra) is found dead, Do-joon is charged with the murder. To prove his innocence, his mother tries to find the killer herself. [Trailer // 129 mins]
Why you should watch it: From its opening moments, Mother has you in its grasp. As Kim’s titular character dances in a field, you see flashes of sadness, anger, longing, fear and oddly joy. It’s a fitting way to begin a movie that makes you feel all those emotions. The story unfolds like a Hitchcockian thriller complete with twists, red herrings and shocking revelations. Still, like all of Bong’s films, it’s unclassifiable.
Beneath the mystery is a bleak comedy about a relationship between a mother and son — and the lengths she will go to to protect him. However, Bong is exploring something more profound than that. The mother wins your sympathy as she desperately and obsessively tries to find any clue to free her son. But you know Bong always has more up his sleeve. As the movie winds its way to the mindblowing third act, you find that it’s both celebrating and deconstructing the idea of maternal unconditional love. Along the way, blood is spilled, inhibitions lost and relationships tested. And there’s no one I’d rather have to take me through it than director Bong.
🍷 Pair it with:
The Guilty (dir. Gustav Möller)
Blue Ruin (dir. Jeremy Saulnier)
📺 Buy or Rent: Prime Video | iTunes
In movie newsSpike Lee’s next film is headed to Netflix (and history?)
Last week it was announced that legendary director Spike Lee’s next film Da 5 Bloods will be released globally on June 12 exclusively to Netflix. After a rule change at the Oscars, which I talked about in last week’s newsletter, it will be eligible at next year’s ceremony and could be the first streaming-only release to be ever be nominated — and win — an Oscar.
Here’s what it’s about: “Four African American Vietnam veterans return to Vietnam. They are in search of the remains of their fallen squad leader and the promise of buried treasure. These heroes battle forces of humanity and nature while confronted by the lasting ravages of the immorality of the Vietnam War.”
The cast includes Chadwick Boseman, Jonathan Majors, Paul Walter Hauser, Delroy Lindo, and Clarke Peters.
Lee won his first Oscar last year for Best Adapted Screenplay for BlacKkKlansman. A black director has yet to win Best Director, another historical feat Lee can accomplish with this film.
The bottom line: If Lee finds success with this release model, the floodgates on streaming may finally burst open.
Have a terrific week.
See you Thursday —
Karl (@karl_delo)