MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: MOTHER AND SON (1997)

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Monday, May 26, 2008

MOTHER AND SON (1997)

This painterly meditation, set in a fairy tale landscape of beauty & loneliness, like some Grimm Brothers illustration, watches from a respectful distance as a strapping son (Aleksei Ananishov) tends to his tiny dying mother (Gudrun Geyer), gently coaxing her through one more day. Slow, dreamy, unconscionably beautiful, but with a generic feel to the situation and supersaturated images not found in Alexander Sokurov ’s superior companion piece, FATHER & SON, which glories in odd specificity. This film is worthy, the follow up is brilliant, and brilliantly odd. Even if one of these doesn't work for you, don't let it put you off trying the other one.

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A last thought before we go.

Well, enough from me. But before we sign off, here's a great quote from Emile Zola's L'OEUVRE (THE MASTERPIECE), which is about painting rather than the yet to be invented medium of film, but which points a fine critical eye toward the whole idea of art criticism. It's a good, if chilly, thought to keep in mind, especially when you surf the net.

"Has it ever struck you that posterity may not be the fair, impartial judge we like to think it is?

"Suppose the artist's paradise turned out to be as nonexistent as the Catholics, and future generations prove just as misguided as the present one and persisted in liking pretty pretty dabbling better than honest to goodness painting. There are some accepted masterpieces for which I myself wouldn't give a twopenny damn.

"Classical training has given us a wrong view of everything and forces us to acclaim as geniuses a lot of fellows who are no more than well-balanced, facile painters, while what we might really prefer is the work of more emancipated but less even artists known only to an initiated few. Immortality at present depends entirely on the average, middle-class mind and is reserved only for the names that have been most forcibly impressed upon us while we were still unable to defend ourselves...

"Perhaps that's the sort of thing that's best left unsaid. It's certainly the sort of thing that gives me the shudders!"- Emile Zola

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Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

Monday, May 26, 2008

MOTHER AND SON (1997)

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A last thought before we go.

DROP ME A LINE