Mother and Son

In just over an hour, Sokurov achieves in ‘Mother and Son' a wholly satisfying balance between the aesthetic, emotional, and spiritual elements that inform this simple but extremely profound film. In many ways the film is reminiscent of Andrei Tarkovsky, but where Tarkovsky was more specifically Christian in his metaphysical leanings, Sokurov suggests a kind of "humanist mysticism", an elegiac hymn to the natural rhythms of life and death, and the fragile poignancy of human love. As a celebration of life in the face of death, ‘Mother and Son' portrays the journey we must all eventually face with a simple naturalistic acceptance, and is perhaps the closest thing one might find in cinema to what I can only describe as a sort of "non-religious sacredness".

Sokurov's approach here is very ‘pared-down'. While the dialogue is kept to an absolute minimum, the soundtrack is extremely expressive and is an essential element of the work - the wind, the sea, the "music" of the earth, provide a brilliant counterpoint and commentary to what is seen. The look of the film is remarkable, inspired by the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich, but while the images are indeed beautiful, they are never merely "picturesque". From beginning to end, Mother and Son is a work of genius.

The prior commentator went a little overboard. The film is surely not the greatest of all time. It is, perhaps, the greatest LOVE FILM of all time. The beauty of the landscape (note that this is Russia in deep summer -- deep winter would have produced a much different effect - but then the mother is dying, and the contrast between her physical state and the lushness of the fields and forests is necessary to keep one from being overwhelmed by sorrow ) is itself commentary on the beauty between these two. No pretty girl, no surging music, no reasons even for the love. It is just there. Titanic. Not tied to sex or gratitude. JUST EMOTION. The dialog is spare. There is no third person. Though everything moves very sluggishly, this fits perfectly. This is not a movie. It is a poem. Extremely fine too as an essay on what the core of love looks like.

Mother & Son is a stunningly perfectionist yet tremendously moving piece of art. The plot as it is revolves around a son tending to his dying mother in a rural Russian setting.

Whilst this situation is itself moving, the primary impact of the film is sensual. Sokurov goes to immense trouble to turn every extended take into a mesmerising image worthy in-itself, using intricate filters and in-camera techniques to create a stunningly original visual landscape. The dolby soundtrack is just as complex, mixing natural ambient recordings, sparse but precise dialog and occasional snippets of classical music mixed in at a nearly inaudible level. The soundtrack itself could stand alone.

More importantly, perhaps, the style fits the subject matter. What Sokurov essentially does is kills the audience - the film has an immense hypnotic power that places the audience directly inside the gaze of the dying woman. Both times I saw this film, the entire audience was left sitting dazed and motionless for a number of minutes after the house lights had come up.

The final triumph is the films short running time of 1 hr 15 minutes. The audience is given no time to lose concentration, and the film achieves all its goals in this time.

Mother & Son must rank as one of the few recent films to qualify as a truly cinematic experience.

This film is about the relationship between a sick mother and her son. (surprise.) Surely, this isn't for the average viewer: narrative is slow, events nonexistent; the film consists mostly of painting-like "still-lives" with very little dialogue. The mother and son walk along the beautiful sceneries (the film is done on the island of Rügen, by the coast of Germany), approach each other, take contact by embracing and hugging.

Nick Cave, the rock singer, said somewhere that this film is the most beautiful he has ever seen. I agree that it is maybe Sokurov's best: the twisted images of the landscapes, great camera work and almost meditative feeling are something I love to see in the cinema - if nothing else, just as an attempt this is a great film, instead of all the run-of-the-mill "narratives" we come across.

Beautiful. Word.

There is very little in the movies today that is anything like Mother and Son. Certainly the slow movement, which mirrors life itself, is far away from any editing that we normally see. But what is there to prepare one for the absolute exquisite beauty, scene after scene. Because of the slowness, because of the beauty, because of the subject, it is painfully exquisite. One feels, at once, the heavy pain and suffering of this life and its beautifulness. The two seem to coexist like oil and water, pulling one in two directions at once. Of plot, in the normal sense, there is little or none. Everything is about the hiddeness and mystery of all things, all relationships, the blowing of the grass in the wind, a young man carrying his mother, Death. What more is there to say?