Rating: 
Summary: fantasic
Review: anyone with any tenuous connection to the northern ireland conflict can relate to this film. having spent several years studying the northern ireland peace process, i've found this to be an extremely accurate account of the hunger strikers. this is by no means an easy film to watch, but it helped me gain a firmer grasp on what occurred in the H blocks.
Rating:
Summary: fantasic
Review: anyone with any tenuous connection to the northern ireland conflict can relate to this film. having spent several years studying the northern ireland peace process, i've found this to be an extremely accurate account of the hunger strikers. this is by no means an easy film to watch, but it helped me gain a firmer grasp on what occurred in the H blocks.
Rating:
Summary: Overwhelming
Review: As they say, you'll like this if this is the sort of thing you like. I say you'll probably like it even better (or something far transcending "like"). Like Mizoguchi's Sansho the Bailiff, this is a film that can break or make friendships. Incredibly beautiful; but not to every man on the street.If you seek it out, you probably know just what you're doing. I was mesmerized!
Rating:
Summary: an advise to a bored viewer
Review: Editorial pacing of this film is very important. Very slow, with perhaps five different sets in all and two characters. This is the most accurate, impressionistic description of life in the Russian village and of a relationship between Mother and Son. I lived in Russia for 25 years and find it to be the most convincing and beautiful execution.
Rating: 
Summary: disappointed
Review: I agree with most of the reviewers - the film is beautifully filmed, the pace is slow (and so it should be), the takes are long, there is the sound of wind and thunder in the background etc etc. However I am disappointed in the lack of meaningful dialogue between the mother and son. I am sure if Tarkovsky directed the film it would have had more effective dialogue. I watched the film and when the mother had finally died, I knew nothing about either of them. There was a great opportunity to make a really great film here. The film would have been so much richer if we got an insight into the 2 characters.
In the film "The Sacrifice" by Tarkovsky, the film has long takes, beautifull camerawork, slow pacing AND plenty of meaningful dialogue. Surely after a long life one would have fond memories, disappointments, regrets etc. None of these were expressed between mother and son. So in the end the film is meaningless. The son just carries his mother around and then she dies! This had the real potential to be a great film and it fell well short.
Rating: 
Summary: pretentious boring rubbish
Review: I found this film really awful when I saw it. There is no plot, just an old woman slowly dying and her son looking after her. I think we are meant to be moved by the intensity of the mother-son relationship, but we aren't given any information to feed our feelings. The film is not at all realistic, the characters represent "The Mother" and "The Son", they are not individuals at all, so it's difficult to be interested in or sympathetic about their plight. the cinematography is ugly, nature is filmed in artificial pastel colours, and occasionally trees etc are distorted, for no obvious reason. The religious symbolism of the stations of the cross had to be explained to me later, I missed it entirely. Symbolism is powerful when a work of art is making a link between an individual situation and some general theme, this film only deals with general ideas, so there is no power in the piling on of arty clichés. The only good thing about this film is its shortness: when Sokurov has finished saying what he wanted to say he shuts up. However it's still boring and meaningless, and a waste of time.
Rating:
Summary: A work of genius!
Review: 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....
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully filmed, acted, presented
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Mind numbing boredom
Review: I must not understand cinema well, if this film is considered to have pushed the boundaries of cinema. The only boundaries I found being pushed were my boredom.
Was there effective cinematography? Yes. Was the countryside beautiful? Yes. Did I learn anything at all about the relationship between the mother and the son? Absolutely not. Obviously he cares for her a great deal. You can see that in the tenderness with which he treats her. That is, admittedly, very touching. But when I watch a film, or read a book, I want to learn something about the characters. All I learned was that he loved his mom. Most of us do, although our relationship may not be as deep - but WHY was their relationship so deep? There was *plenty* of time for dialogue that could have told us something about the two of them. Instead, we see the countryside, we see the son carrying the mother around, brushing her hair back - this does not convey the exactness of their relationship.
On a different note, the mother looked dead when the movie started. I don't know how she lasted as long as she did. It was unrealistic. I've had the unfortunate experience of watching someone die, so I know what I'm talking about.
Looking at all of the other reviews here, I'm certain that mine will be soundly "booed". That doesn't change my opinion.
Rating:
Summary: Overwhelming... ly Boring
Review: I'm actually glad I saw this movie. I has become a benchmark movie for me. I don't think I will be able to top this one. This movie is BOOOOOOOOOOOOORINNNNNNG. If you haven't seen it, please believe me.
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