A mixed bag of three movies and a mini-series, all united by the idea that love can make you do strange things...

And beware, this piece is awash with spoilers.

1.
Mother
2009, Bong Joon-ho

Definitely the darkest of the quartet, this was made by the director who, 10 years later, came up with Parasite. Here he's already excelling at twisty endings. The "mother" of the title (Kim Hye-ja) is never named. Her son, Do-jun (Weon Bin), is in his late twenties, but his intellectual disability means she is constantly on the look-out for him, and works hard to support him by selling herbal remedies and offering acupuncture sessions. It's a slightly strange, claustrophobic relationship.

Things take a tragic turn when a young woman, Ah-jung, is killed, and her body prominently displayed on the upper level of an abandoned house. Circumstantial evidence leads the less-than-thorough police investigators to Do-jun, who is easily persuaded to make a confession.

So Mother turns detective, questioning would-be witnesses, pressuring the police, hiring a (pretty useless) lawyer, and all the while trying to comfort her son, now detained.


Gwangju, 2015

There are many stages to the unravelling of the puzzle (you'll find a much more detailed account here). But Mother eventually tracks down a homeless scavenger, who was present at the murder site on the night Ah-jung died. What Mother is told, however, is not what she expected. Rather than exonerating Do-jun, and incriminating himself, the garbage man witnessed what actually happened. Ah-jung is scared because Do-jun is following her (with exactly what intent we don't really know); she throws a rock at him from the shadows of the derelict house; unscathed, he lobs it back; and it kills her...

To stop the old man sharing this information with the police, Mother kills him, and sets fire to the premises.

What drives her to this desperate act? Well, love, for sure. Is it also guilt? The son earlier recalled a time when he was very young, and she attempted to get rid of him. His memory is notoriously unreliable. But she doesn't contradict him.

As Mark Jenkins puts it: "A satire as a well as a murder mystery, the film depicts contemporary Koreans as mercenary and alienated. In the face of such social decay, holding the family together is elemental. So Mother must be right, even when she's very wrong."



In the meantime, the police have followed another wrong lead, and arrested Ah-jung's boyfriend.

By the end, Mother knows that Do-jun has killed someone (albeit not deliberately); she knows that SHE has killed someone (in cold blood); she knows that her son knows that she has killed someone; she knows that someone else is going to prison for something he didn't do; and she knows that somehow she and her son have to live with all that.

This movie, like Parasite, demonstrates Bong Joon-ho's capacity for mixing genres. It's funny in places; it's often gripping; it's mordantly critical of Korean institutions. And it's absolutely tragic. The opening and closing scenes see Mother dancing. We don't realize at the beginning, of course, that this opening dance occurs immediately after the murder of the homeless man... At the end, on the bus trip that she's embarked on (presumably to give herself a change of scene), she dances again -- but only after using her famous acupuncture technique for erasing bad memories...

Who thought dancing could be so heart-rending? Yet I guess there's a sense in which we all dance our way through life, just trying to forget things we wish had been different...





2.
Inked
2021, Zijun Yang and Mingjian Cui

Also about familial love, though in much less startling vein, is this eight-part mini-series from New Zealand.

I found this instantly engaging, and not just because of the nostalgic look back at Auckland that it offered us.


Auckland, 2000

Billed as "the very first funded English-Mandarin series made for an Aotearoa-based audience", it is linguistically fascinating. Five languages are spoken in the script, and the cast and crew spoke even more. Plus, some actors spoke Chinese but didn't read it. So the script circulated in Mandarin Chinese, English, and Pinyin (Chinese written in the Roman alphabet), and "a lot of on-the-fly translation was required".

But the warmth of the story comes from the families it portrays. Two generations are represented here: the people who came from China as adults; and the people who came to New Zealand at such an early age that they've spent their formative years there (the "1.5 generation", as they're known). It's not easy for either of them.

Central to the story is Jiayue (Lisa Zhang), who has dropped out of medical school to pursue her dream of becoming a tattoo artist. She is not only struggling financially, but also living a double-life, as she tries to keep her real ambitions from the ears of her father (Gang Du), who has little sympathy for trivial pursuits such as tattooing. Jiayue's mother, meanwhile, unable to hack life as an immigrant, returned to China many years ago. She has now come back on a visit, throwing yet another spanner into the familial works.

The directors were drawing on their own experiences in the presentation of this dilemma: "For Cui, who has had a fraught relationship with her parents over the decision to pursue a less 'stable' career in filmmaking, a trip to China with the first draft proved a nerve-wracking experience. 'I realised I didn’t understand Chinese parents enough during writing,' she says, 'so I really needed them to help me out.' She recalls her emotion at seeing her mother smiling while reading the episodes in her bedroom, and her father reading along at the dinner table, pencil hovering above every line. They made script suggestions and shared stories from their own life, which Cui says brought her closer to the people that raised her. 'It was the first time we got to talk so openly. And I cried so hard later when I was alone. I knew all of the anger and misunderstandings were forgiven, and I felt I understood my parents more.' Yang similarly recalled moments from his own life to write some of the most deeply affecting scenes in the show. 'My parents were utterly against me when I told them I wanted to study film, after I had graduated from business school and worked for a while.'"

Renee Liang, who has a part in the series as the tattoo-hating, Cantonese-speaking mother of a teenager, admits being moved when Jiayue’s father argues that she needs to follow the path expected of her, because otherwise it will reflect badly on him: "It’s a conversation familiar to many, including me, and one of the most emotional points in the show."

Indeed, the series was conceived off the back of interviews with Chinese tattoo-artists in Auckland, who talked to them about "their dreams, their ambitions, and the dramas that unfolded when parents learned what they were doing".



What comes across very clearly is that even parents who sincerely love their offspring may have strange ways of showing that love. Jiayue's Dad does eventually start to come round, but en route we go through a long line of silences, misguided dinner invitations to Jiayue's ex, and "housework deals" -- procedures which may have his daughter's best interests at heart, but which are undeniably intrusive and infantilizing. He's essentially a likable character, but because he sees Jiayue only in her role as the child-who-should-obey, he really struggles to appreciate that she has a genuine talent and a warm personality. It seems as though he's applying to his daughter the same rigidity that once drove his wife back to China.

Visiting Mum, meanwhile, is supportive of Jiayue's ambitions, and even offers to back her financially. But then she's not going to be there...

I take my hat off to parents. It's an impossible job at the end of the day.





3.
I Am Love (Io sono l'amore)
2009, Luca Guadagnino

So now we're very definitely into the area of romantic love -- overpowering, disruptive, destructive, and revolutionary -- but also not entirely out of the realms of ambivalent family love either. This is one of those movies that I found a little underwhelming at the time, but have grown to appreciate as I've read more about it.

After some snowy scene-setting in Milan, we are introduced to a dynasty from the haute bourgeoisie: "The Recchi family has been living in a particular way for a long time. Cushioned by great wealth, working in an industry associated with style, never challenged, well-educated, its hungers cloaked in tradition, it occupies its place of privilege effortlessly." Until, of course, love happens...


Milan, 2019

There's a grand opening set-piece dinner... The environment is elegant and sophisticated, but it represents everything that can be hard to bear about families: It feels stifling, hide-bound, somehow over-laden... And of course no riches grow out of purely innocent ground, and we soon learn about the contribution of the Fascist era to the Recchi treasure chest.

In particular, we follow Emma (Tilda Swinton): "Did she understand when she married her husband what sort of family she was joining? She knew they were rich Italian aristocrats, operators of textile mills in Milan. But did she understand that as a wife from Russia, she would serve and provide and even be loved, but would never truly be a member?"

Emma isn't even her original name... It is the name given to her by her husband, Tancredi (Pippo Delbono). She says she can't remember her original name... She looks fabulous, and she ably superintends the household. But she comes across as personally aloof and socially on the margins. The housekeeper, Ida, seems more part of the family.

Two things happen that drop a stone in the Recchi pond. The first is that Emma meets Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini), a talented chef and close friend of younger son Edo (Flavio Parenti); together the two young men are planning to launch a restaurant. The second is that Emma finds out that her daughter, Betta (Alba Rohrwacher), is in love with a woman. This discovery triggers something within her, perhaps the realization that love doesn't always follow the traditional path laid down by the Recchis...



Emma plunges into an affair with Antonio. This upsets Edo drastically, partly because it becomes clear that Emma has shared with Antonio intimate little Russian things (like a soup recipe) that have previously belonged in the domain of her relationship with Edo (with whom she speaks Russian). But aside from that, well -- your mother and your best friend... It would be pretty hard to handle. And Edo has already been betrayed by his father, who intends to sell the family textile business to a multi-national corporation.

The ensuing argument between mother and son tragically leads to Edo's accidental death. Emma tells Tancredi about her passion for Antonio, to which he memorably responds: "You don't exist."

And Emma escapes to whatever sort of freedom she'll be able to find alongside Antonio...



But somehow I found myself not caring about Emma that much... I was more interested in what's going to happen to Betta, or to Eva (Diane Fleri), Edo's always somewhat sidelined, never quite accepted, widow. There's a coldness about Emma that makes her hard to empathize with.

Roger Ebert, whose views on films are always worth reading, concludes: "I Am Love is an amazing film. It is deep, rich, human. It is not about rich and poor, but about old and new. It is about the ancient war between tradition and feeling."

Yet I lean more towards the appraisal of Peter Bradshaw: "Emma does not seem to be any more personally open after this great awakening than before it... I Am Love is an arresting film in many ways... -- and it's fascinating, if a little bloodless."

But there are some curious things lurking in there, which merit at least a mention. After the San Remo scene in which Emma's affair with Antonio begins, we see her watching television. On the screen is the scene from the movie Philadelphia, in which the dying Andrew Beckett (played by Tom Hanks) listens enraptured to an aria sung by Maria Callas. It's called "La mamma morta" (the dead mother), and it concludes thus: "I am love, I am love, love; and the angel approaches with a kiss, and in that kiss is death. My body is the body of a dying woman! So take it. I'm already dead." As Rebecca Bauman points out: "This Philadelphia sequence reiterates the merging of sexual desire, death and art... Although Emma herself becomes transfixed by this sequence, it is disrupted when Tancredi enters and absent-mindedly turns to another channel."

Bauman also sees the movie as a "political melodrama", an approach she explains like this: "The political melodrama has been considered dormant in western cinema of recent years... I Am Love is a bold attempt at reviving the genre by combining a sociopolitical critique of contemporary Italian society with the use of a romantic plot line and neo-baroque formalism that are the hallmarks of the classic melodrama." I wonder if she places too much emphasis on the political element, but it's a really interesting study, and certainly made me look at the film rather differently.



4.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
2008, Woody Allen

If compared with I Am Love, this can't help but seem a little frothy. But it's entertaining enough, and it makes some valid points about romantic love: It might not come in neat packages; and we might not end up with exactly what we want, in which case we can choose to either settle or keep looking, potentially for ever...

We are introduced to Vicky (Rebecca Hall), who is a little staid, and engaged to the even staider Doug (Chris Messina), who likes to talk about house purchases and swimming pools; and to Cristina (Scarlett Johansen), who is a little wacky, and prone to attract turmoil. The two are beginning their vacation in Barcelona, staying with some relatives of Vicky's. The two young women rapidly come across mercurial artist Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem). He's quite the operator, and before you know it, they're both going off to Oviedo with him. Once there, it's the reluctant-but-fascinated Vicky who ends up in JA's bed, whereas the much keener Cristina is struck down with an ulcer, or food poisoning, or some evil combination of the two.

Once back in Barcelona, Vicky returns to being engaged to Doug, but still clearly carries a torch for JA. Meanwhile, Cristina, oblivious to all this, moves in with JA herself. Then Doug turns up, suddenly all romantic, and desperate to tie the knot in Barcelona.

Peace doesn't last long, however, as Juan Antonio's fiery ex-wife, Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz), explodes back on the scene. They're actually still in love with each other, but it's a competitive, combative kind of love, and they can't live long together without fireworks. What they discover, however, is that a menage a trois -- with Cristina as the third leg of the tripod -- is just what is needed to bring them peace. She is the missing ingredient that allows them to live together happily. Unlikely? I don't know... It's a film...

But Cristina is always looking for more. Realizing that this unconventional arrangement won't suit her for long, she heads off -- and the ME/JA partnership collapses again. Meanwhile, a well-meaning relative decides to have one more go to pair off Vicky and JA. Before anything happens, ME turns up, armed with a gun. The resulting mayhem convinces Vicky that she wants nothing to do with this insanity. So she leaves. Vicky, Doug, and Cristina return to the US.

As this synopsis succinctly puts it, "Vicky goes back to her mainstream life and Cristina remains where she began, not knowing what she wants, but knowing what she doesn't want. As Vicky chooses to live her planned, perceived ideal life and Cristina chooses to live with no plans for life, they end where they began."

I had a few beefs: I found the presence of the narrator a little irritating; and the characters, for all their attractiveness, frankly struggle to rise above the stereotypical. The homage to Barcelona that Allen wants to pay also seems a tad hackneyed. He is driven by the idea that "a story like this could only happen in a place like Paris or Barcelona", and so he presents a veritable picture-postcard of the city -- all the famous drawcards, but without the tourist hordes. (Here is our brief experience of Barcelona.)

So... Not profound, but it's pleasant to watch with a bottle of wine.


Barcelona 2020