Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #60093 in DVD
• Brand: Kino Video
• Released on: 2006-04-18
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: Russian
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 72 minutes

Amazon.com
In a remote house in the Russian countryside, Mother is on her deathbed and her adult son is taking care of her. When she asks to go for a walk, he carries her to a bench where she takes a nap, then he carries her to a few places out in nature before bringing her home. Then he goes by a walk himself, returning to his mother who is lying quietly in her bed. Doesn't sound like much, does it? Against this skeletal story, critically acclaimed director Alexander Sokurov manages to push the boundaries of cinema, all the while evoking the deep and sometimes troubled love between a mother and her son. He does this not through quick cuts and hyperkinetic camera moves but by doing just the opposite. More often than not, between lines of dialog the camera is locked down and film is allowed to run through it, while the soundtrack is filled with wind and distant thunder. Consequently, whenever the camera does move, whenever someone does speak, it's electrifying. Sokurov further abstracts his often stunningly beautiful images with odd filters and lenses. Once you get into the pace of the film, it's hard not to get swept away by it, and it's even better on a second viewing. --Andy Spletzer

Customer Reviews

Beautifully filmed, acted, presented
I loved this film, though I can understand some of the comments by people who found it to be slow. I don't really understand why anyone would say that the film has no plot or that it is boring. Sure, it seems like a simple plot--a mother dies and a son watches--but these things, mothers and sons and death, are not simple things. They are also not boring things. This is a film for anyone who loves beautifully crafted and filmed works of art.

THE CINEMA AS CANVAS
Many films have come along in the history of cinema that have caused reviewers to compare the director's work to that of an artist working on canvas - but Alexander Sokurov's MOTHER AND SON comes closer than anything else I have ever seen to that comparison, barring those who have been blatant in their use of post-production trickery. One article I read about the film stated that Sokurov was pretty tight-lipped about how he achieved the stunning visual effects in this work - but when pressured, he revealed that NOTHING had been done in the post-production phase of the film, that all of the visuals were accomplished by simple - but painstaking - use of mirrors, panes of glass, special lenses, &c. The results are breathtaking. MOTHER AND SON is like nothing I have ever seen. The effects, rather than distract or detract from the impact of the film, underscore it perfectly - everything occurs as if in a dreamstate, leaving the viewer wondering not only about the 'reality' of the occurrences depicted onscreen, but about their place in time as well. The film is only 73 minutes long - do the events within take place more or less within that timeframe, or over a more extended one?

The portrayal of the soul-deep love between a son and his mother by the two actors is a moving one. We are left with more questions than answers about their personal situations, their lives apart or together, the locale in which they live - but we are left with no doubts at all about the devotion they feel for each other.

I watched this film once on my own, then again a few days later in the company of my best friend. She drew things from the film that I had missed, and offered some valuable insights. I would strongly suggest watching it more than once - I feel certain that each viewing will reveal something new, something that will touch and move the viewer on a very deep level.

Sokurov was a student (and a close friend) of Andrei Tarkovsky - but his work shows that he is anything but derivative, and a genius in his own right. This film is truly one of the great treasures of modern cinema.

A work of genius!
I guess it's easy to tag films as masterpieces when one is enthusiastic about a particular film or the work of a favourite director, but few deserve the term more than this remarkable cinematic work of art. In a little over an hour, Sokurov manages to achieve a perfect balance between the aesthetic, the emotional, and the spiritual elements that inform this simple but extremely profound film.

The cinematic characteristics Sokurov employs are reminiscent of the work of Andrei Tarkovsky, but he uses them in a particularly economic and distilled form, free of the preachiness and (dare I say) pretension that occasionally colours the work of the late master. Despite these elements, one can not say that this is in any way an emulation of Tarkovsky, unlike Lopushansky's 'Letters from a Dead Man' (another fine film). This is most definitely the work of a film-maker fully aware of, and in command of his own artistic voice.

Where Tarkovsky was specifically Christian in terms of the metaphysical leanings of his films, Sokurov's film presents us with a kind of humanist mysticism, an elegiac hymn to human love, and to the natural rhythms of life and death. His film is a celebration of what it is to be human. All the conventional elements of cinema are pared right down. Dialogue is kept to an absolute minimum, but the soundtrack is essential to a full appreciation of the work - the wind, the sea, the "music" of the earth, provide a brilliant counterpoint and commentary to what is seen (and perceived). The look of the film is remarkable, inspired by the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich.

From beginning to end, Mother and Son feels like one long epiphany. This is contemplative, transcendental cinema at its best, and proof that cinema is far from dead. A true work of genius. Well I like it anyway....