Mother and Son

Effort was clearly expended in the composition and post-production, but to this viewer's eyes the results seem a little overcooked. The muted characterisation, while grasping at a minimalistic simplicity, approaches muteness. The heavy influence of Tarkovsky is visible in every frame, but without the intellectualism. Having lived through something similar in the fairly recent past, I found it surprisingly unaffecting, perhaps because the characters are just too abstracted to respond to.

This cinematic whisper from Alexsandr Sokurov depicts the final hours a son spends with his dying mother. There's no story here, just a situation, and it is rendered as series of long, carefully-composed shots of unsurpassing beauty. I've never seen a movie that looks quite like this one. It's shot with different lenses to extend or flatten depth, through glass filters that destabilize the image, creating a precious waver.

This film is very in tune with nature, portraying it as both wondrous and destructive. This is exemplified through the cinematography (showing the dying mother's vision of the world) as simultaneously nauseating and beautiful. The sound design/music is also terrific, mixing together to create a calm ambient soundtrack. It's simple, even tedious, yet it all works for this oddly uplifting and inspiring film.

It's short and has absolutely unique and mesmerizing visuals, those two things are reason enough to give it a go. Despite some touching content it does get pretty tedious though, with the pacing slowing to a crawl without much narrative reason.

About as much fun as watching people die possibly could be, which is to say not at all. I actually mean that as compliment. The construction is so immaculate - every shot is like a painting, but not in the way people normally mean that - and the intention so focused that, in a weird way, it becomes sorta life-affirming.

Heartbreaking in its look at coping with loss and mortality. Its usage of nature to express mood and what its characters are going through makes me think of a Terrence Malick film, only this is far, far more minimalist.

Sokurov believes that the role of art is to prepare you for death, and M+S is just that: an elegant and moving meditation on the inevitable dissolution of life's essential bond. It is often criticised for its lack of content, but it's not about 'ideas' per se. It's an aesthetic creation that is sensual and moody. It's best appreciated as a dreamy tone poem that is hushed and intimate and rendered with complete senstivity by a master image maker in full control of the audio-visual medium.

I always had a hard time imagining how hell looks like. Now I know. It's a screening room where you are forced to watch this and "Goodbye Dragon Inn" like Alex in "Clockwork Orange" ...for eternity. Just thinking of that makes me shiver.

There is beauty in the visuals but the characters are kept at arms's length throughout and thus I was neither engaged nor moved.

I have to admit this is somewhat light on content. But it is breathtakingly gorgeous. Images are filtered through a gentle haze, and much of it is shot with an odd skewed effect, as if viewing it from an extreme angle. Sounds gimmicky, but it works beautifully, creating a mild sense of disorientation, and giving an unusual perspective. One of the most painterly movies I've ever witnessed. Requires some patience, but if you just chill out and let yourself become absorbed, it's well worth it.

Mãe e Filho estreava há 25 anos no Festival de Mar Del Plata. Acho que não tinha essa sensação de pintura filmada dessa magnitude desde que vi A Cor da Romã. É uma festa para os sentidos e para os sentimentos. Obra-prima. DVDRip no MakingOff.

"A film to die to." - Keith Uhlich

I can see why some regard this as Tarkovsky without the fireworks, but I was never that enamored with Tarkovsky anyway. This is almost plotless, and the dialogue is scant, but its best feature remains the symbolistic changes of scenery. The text I followed attentively, and I got the mental states that were being related, but I have to say it didn't particularly move me.

Exremely low-voiced, taciturn and sore - "pure cinema", one could possibly say. The expressionistic images, the silence (only periodically broken by the melancholic music by Mikhail Ivanovich), and the unhurried pace together creates a peculiar mood of peaceful yearning... The film may not be as intensely resonant as some of Tarkovskys diligent meditations, but it is, at least, delicious to see how Sokurov give the images so much value and the words so little significance.

As simple a premise as possible paired with a unique aesthetic that makes it look like the characters are in a beautiful watercolor painting. While watching I was unsure if this was strong work or a happy accident due to a bad camera (it is the former) but the visuals are arresting. I was surprised I wasn't more emotionally moved by it. It felt like something I should be reacting to more. At times feels almost amateurish (in a good way, somehow). A beautiful, simple, quiet film, though.

#750

A slow moving, beautiful painting.