JimBell Blog

Mother of Mine

Under discussion:
Mother of Mine (2005)

Under discussion:

Mother of Mine (2005)

Mother of Mine (2005) is excellent—a moving story and a sophisticated theme, and great acting to convey them.

You’ve got to feel for a 9-year old whose happy existence is torn apart by the war—his father dies in battle, his mother gives him up (maybe needlessly) to be whisked away to safe Sweden where he encounters a “foster mother” who doesn’t want him. Through these trials, the boy is not pathetic but rather a feisty kid determined to have an impact. He tries to assure his mother that he can fix the war-damaged house, he builds a raft and tries to sail back to Finland, and, central to the film, he settles on a way of related to his two mothers (not to trust either of them).

The acting ensemble is the best I’ve seen since 3:10 to Yuma last year. Young Eero (Topi Majaniemi) never over acts and manages to project a jejune masculine determination throughout. His Swedish “foster father” (Martin Nyqvist) establishes a natural relationship with the lad, not one of the too common I’m-a-famous-actor-working-with-a-youngster relationships. Realistically, the father starts out thankful to have a hired hand, quickly grows to like the boy, and then, when his wife becomes more emotionally available, distances himself subtly from the boy and supports sending him back to Finland. The foster mother, Signe (Maria Lundqvist) is fierce. In one of the best acting performances of the year, she conveys repressed guilt, sorrow, love, and a host of other emotions authentically while always maintaining the sense that this changing woman is an integrated, coherent person. Spout reviewer QFLW praises her performance, Spout reviewer Erico says the “great acting” is the film’s strength, and Spout reviewer Demndiary says the entire film is “filled with amazing performances.”

The film’s narrative structure is strong but doesn’t work as well as it could. Spout reviewer Erico says the flash forwards into the present harm the movie so much they should be eliminated: “They shift the film away from the central focus . . of what it is to be a mother and puts the film in a more nostalgic tone.” This issue is worth looking at. To be clear, the movie is almost one giant flash back. The memories of World War II are triggered when Eero, now a podgy middle-aged man, receives an invitation to return to Sweden for the funeral of his Swedish “mother.” With the invitation, we later learn, came two letters that Eero had not seen, but should have seen, as a child. In the present, he shows up at his aged mother’s place and “wants to talk about the war.” Although she at first rebuffs him, they wind up talking heart-to-heart at the end of the movie. These “present” scenes are wisely shot in black and white. For Eero, the past and past mistakes are more vivid than his present existence. The black and white scenes would have integrated into the movie better if they had been shot in the same style as the coloured scenes. Although it is difficult to describe the differences, most of the movie is shot in a slightly blurry or soft colour, the lighting is flat or diffuse, and there are relatively few tight close-ups; but the black and white features tight shots starkly lighted. The black and white flash-forwards would also have seemed more integral to the movie if they had had more action. The flashback has a surprising amount of action, albeit from a child’s perspective, but the black and white is primarily a mother and son sitting and talking. I admit I don’t have a brilliant idea of how these should have been shot, but the most effective black and white scene was of the mother rebuffing her son, so if the truth about the past had come out in a more dramatic way than sitting and talking, the scenes would have seemed more integral to the movie. If you omitted the flash forward scenes, you would hurt the movie because they are crucial for the film’s theme. Spout review QFLW identifies the theme as “coming to terms with painful, conflicting emotions of the past and with the well-meaning but wounding mistakes both his mothers made.” The director (Klaus Haro), not always the best source for the theme a movie, writes for Film Movement: “The story focuses on the principal character’s lifelong battle with his suppressed feelings—in order to dispel his parents mistakes from his mind, Eero has to face them, and come to terms with himself and his two mothers.” This argues for a more developed present in the film.

The only major weakness of the film is what Spout reviewer Erico calls the “the sweeping melodramatic score” which is “plain annoying.” Especially at the start of the movie, before you get to know the characters, the orchestra tries to tell you how to feel. Interestingly, during one of the most poignant scenes later in the movie, the music is a sparse, spare melody by a single instrument—and very effective.

Mother of Mine was Finland’s entry in the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film. To put this in context, the same year saw the atmospheric El Aura from Argentina, the wrenching view of street life The Child from Belgium, and the stark moral drama about resistance to Hitler, Sophie Scholl: The Final Days from Germany. Mother of Mine can certainly hold its own in this company.

posted on Sunday, March 02, 2008 1:39 PM by JimBell

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joem18b
Posted Monday, August 25, 2008 6:31 PM

Thanks for the review. I enjoyed reading it. (there's a glitch in it, such that all the text acts as one big link back to the movie page.) I agree with your thoughts about the flash-forwards. I think that the whole problem could have been solved by tossing out the "missing letters" plotting and trusting to the simple, raw power of the situation as it existed. Finally transferring his affections to his foster mother and then being asked to transfer them back again was in itself sufficient trauma to damage Eero for life. The missing letter business trivialized the situation, to the cost of the movie.

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