Madre e hijo

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?

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.

I had completely forgotten about the film until I was chatting to a friend today and an image suddenly formed, unbidden in my mind, and I could perfectly see that wonderful scene where the son supports his mother and her skin seems almost translucent, and all that can be heard on the soundtrack is her laboured breathing, and those wonderful painterly scenes of verdant meadows. I doubt I will have a cinematic experience like watching this film again. Rushing home from work, I went out to meet a friend and see it. Sat in a beautiful cinema that smelled of red velvet, we got to see this film, where just for a second time stops and slows. All that matters is sensation, and beauty, and plot or character just fades away... the most wonderful film, so different and so fragile.

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.

Aleksandr Sokurov in MAT I SYN (MOTHER AND SON) has succeeded in capturing those brief, breathing moments that surround death, freezing them in an timeless mold like a shell in a crystal mass, something that goes beyond the passage of time and captures the essence of extended farewells. This brief film is one of the most probing and tender embraces of the meeting/meaning of life and death, of the continuity of a mother's soul in the form of her son, and most important, it is an elegy about the quiet power and beauty of nature.

A son (Aleksei Ananishnov) comforts his terminally ill mother (Gudrun Geyer) with gentle caresses, combing her hair, sharing dreams that are identical, and providing solace in every way imaginable. The mother asks for a walk and the son carries her in his arms to a vantage of the sea and through the gnarled trunks of the woods, a path marked by poplars. He carries her back to the little house, and as she sleeps he walks by himself, observing a little train (a departure) in the distance, a sole ship (a departure) gliding on the ocean, and amidst all this natural beauty he clings to an old tree in a tearful embrace. He returns and his mother has died: the cycle of life is complete.

Throughout this seemingly simple film Sokorov concentrates on silence, the little dialogue that is spoken is from the gentle script by Yuri Arabov. The 'actors' are appropriately not actors (Ananishnov is a Professor of Mathematics!). The sounds are of nature - rumbling thunder, wind in the trees - and the minimal music is appropriately by Mikhail Glinka and Otmar Nussio with original music by Mikhail Ivanovich. The cinematography by Aleksei Fyodorov is likely greatly influenced by Sokurov's vision: each frame is a still life of nature both with and without the two characters, and with the use of filters, mirrors and broken glass the images are indescribably beautiful. Filmed on the island of Rügen close to the coast of Germany the atmosphere is pure and unhindered by peripheral marks of civilization. Sokurov's 1997 film and his subsequent films OTETS I SYN ('FATHER AND SON') and RUSSKIY KOVCHEG ('RUSSIAN ARK') have established him as one of the most creative filmmakers of today. Highly recommended, especially for those who appreciate art, nature, and the humbling magnificence of the cycle of life.

Grady Harp