Mat i syn (1997)

User Rating:

7.5/10   

Director:

Aleksandr Sokurov

Writer:

Yuri Arabov (writer)

Release Date:

6 February 1998 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A slow and poignant story of love and patience told via a dying mother nursed by her devoted son. The...

Plot Keywords:

Cult Director | Loneliness | Nature | Russia | Old Woman

Awards:

3 wins & 4 nominations

Cast

Aleksei Ananishnov	...	Son
Gudrun Geyer	...	Mother

Also Known As:

Мать и сын (Russia)
Mother and Son (USA)
Mutter und Sohn (Germany)

Runtime:

73 min

Country:

Russia | Germany

Language:

Russian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Certification:

South Korea:12 | Argentina:Atp | Chile:TE | France:U | Peru:PT | Portugal:M/12 | Sweden:Btl | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | UK:U

Company:

Severny Fond

Movie Connections:

Followed by Otets i syn (2003)

Stunning

I've never seen a film like Mother and Son and I think I've been looking for something like it my whole life. It is a hypnotic dream, part myth, part fairy tale, a sad reverie. It's hard to tell from critical response what kind of distribution it got in the West unless it was next to none. Obviously, the subject of death is not what they're looking for in Kansas. But in the few "professional" reviews there is a sense of respect about Mother and Son. Even the most negative of critics ("maddeningly slow and self-conscious, the most rarefied, decadent, overripe kind of 'genius' elitist art") remark about the visual and aural impact it makes.

In Barry Lyndon, Kubrick held those beautiful scenes so the eye could luxuriate in ideal landscapes, the perfect counterpoint to Barry's character. Here Sokurov doesn't just pause but allows us to move into the scenes where faces, bodies, trees hillsides are distorted by life. My favorite scene in Mother and Son, is the one when the son decides to leave his mother on the bench as he returns home for a book of postcards. The son says to wait here. And that is what we do in what seems real time. We wait back in the forest with slumbering mother while the camera slowly adjusts our perspective. I wish I had the chance to be with my parents at their deaths. In a sense Sokurov has given me that opportunity in an idealized form.