Rating: 
Summary: THE CINEMA AS CANVAS
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing work of art
Review: The story is simple and yet deep -- a mother and son, together with the beauty of creation, reflect on the nature of life and death as the mother spends her last hours on earth. The experience is quite "heavy" at times but also deeply moving. Sokurov paints with all the passion and craftsmanship of a great artist. This is truly a profound and even meditative work. One of the few films out there that one could say truly touches the heart and soul. Beautiful!
Rating:
Summary: poetic vision
Review: This film is great poetry, a masterpiece. What may appear to our veiw of reality as being 'innate jabber' (jan 28 2002) may just be a different language - one of the soul (an often misused term) - an inner world representing feelings, intuition and feelings. The language of the artist.
There is something about anglo-american consciousness that often doesn't recognize the language of the unconscious. Silence (slowness of pace) and the reality of the different layers of the psyche seem to disappear in our everyday view of the world. The layers of poetry are hidden from our perception by our own arrogance of judgement.
Rating: 
Summary: Tedious and lacking substance
Review: This film is the cinematographic equivalent of those great paintings such as "Polar Bear in Blizzard" and "Ghosts Eating Marshmallows" (which look suspiciously like a blank canvas). The camerawork is decent and the soundtrack is OK, but that doesn't come close to making up for the lack of plot, dialogue, or a worthwhile point. The film consists entirely of scenes in which a son waits for his dying mother to pass away. The son doesn't know what to do, so he just waits and waits. There is very little dialogue, and what little there is consists of the sort of inane jabber that occurs when people don't know what to say or do. The film does accurately depict what it's like to watch people around a deathbed, but watching people do nothing but wait is pointless and boring. The overuse of self-indulgent symbolism is tedious, and the only good part of this film is the end. Don't waste your time watching it.
Rating:
Summary: A cinematic chamber piece of exquisite beauty & profundity.
Review: This film utilizing only two actors in a limited setting of a small interior and the immediately surrounding natural rural environment is a cinematic masterpiece. Solukov stands next to Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Dreyer, Bergman in the depth of his insights, the beauty and power of his photography. Some viewers thought this film is too slow moving, it is not. There are spaces of silence, beautiful sacred silence which swallow the mind. The symbolism of the daily crucifixion of every mortal in the face of death is brought poignantly forth to stand before one as a witness of all that we are and all that we can possibly be. The tenderness of the son for his dying mother, the fear in him of losing her, of not being beside her in her last moment, his sad reassurances to her that he will not be lonely, and the direct communication between them is without parallel in cinema. There is nothing lugubrious, depressing, morbid in this film. This is a spiritual statement of great faith and great depth, the confrontation of death in life, of change, of generation following generation into birth thence into life thence into death. At one place the mother weakly asks if they can go for a walk together. At first the son balks and refuses saying: "It too cold for you to go outside. Are you not sick? Are you pretending to be sick?" There is a short pause, you can hear the breathing of the mother, then she says: "I am pretending. . . ". The son says almost with happiness (is it feigned or real?):"Then if you are pretending, we can go for a walk." She is unable to walk and during the entire film you only see her stand once, when he helps her lean against a birch tree to look downhill across the meadows and fields, the son carries her in his arms. In all the scenes in nature, he carries her, and it is like Christ carrying his Virgin Mother through eternity. But the son is stricken all the same, and breaks under the forthcoming loss of the most precious person in his life, and he goes out into nature alone, and finds solace in the earth, the trees, the sky, the fields. The photography of both the interiors and the exteriors is nothing short of magnificent, you will see lighting effects which will remind you of Lorrain,Turner,Monet, Friedrich. This film is quite short (73 minutes) with a simple but powerful scenario, beautifully written, masterfully acted and brilliantly directed, but it is a film you will want to watch again and again. Like a great piece of music it will open new dimensions within your heart and mind each time you see it. Designated by New York critics as one of the ten best films of the last years of the last century, I would go farther and say that this film is one of the best films ever made. It clearly shows that there are very important talents still making serious films with deep themes. Mother and Son is a work of purest genius. This is a dvd you must have.
Rating:
Summary: Another great film from Russia
Review: This is a really great film! It may only appeal to a select audience (who like art cinema) but it can be for any one who lets themselves be open minded enough about what they see. Don't expect an easy time though!( or alot of laughs) It can be very intense at times, both in its narrative and in its images. The two are combined to work together and are inseperable, but that's really what I liked so much about it. It's like looking at a land scape painting. You can look and look for a long time trying to find something, then when your'e not trying you suddenly feel something! I found it heartening that there are still some directors who work with a love for the elements of cinema ie, unusually beautiful imagery and sound. So atmospheric is the sound track sometimes, that it seems to tell the story on it's own. Whind, birds calling from high up in trees, trains rushing buy and the sound of the sea. All very tactile and poetic! There are many similarities to Tarkovsky's work for example his need to show the importance of nature and the aesthietic derived from it, but it's also very different somehow, newer, not just in the chronological sense but also in his structure and his simpler narrative. Sokurov seems to do alot with very little. Unlike so many directors nowadays who do so little with so much money! This on the other hand is truly artistic cinema.
Rating:
Summary: excellent work of art
Review: This movie is situated at the crossroad of cinematography and painting and from this point of view it pushes the boundaries of the first one. The images are in 2D. They are elongated and they resemble classical paintings. The opening scene, stroke me like a reverted nativity scene. It was Mother and Child, but in this case it was the Child perched over the weightless body of the Mother. The movie is slow paced because the viewer is supposed to focus on the images, on the details, pretty much like one does with the paintings in an art gallery. These images, along with the sounds tell the story. The dialogue is kept to a minimum because this is an universal story of life and death. It does not tell a particular story: there are no experiences to be shared. The whole movie is a parabola of life and death and every element, decor, light, sound, word, has been selected to stir viewers emotions, to orchestrate this symphony of images. This is not a film in the Hollywood sense of the word and that's why people who expected some action gave it 1 star.
Rating:
Summary: Spiritual Embrace Of A 2-Dimensional Medium - Cinema.
Review: Words are an inefficient form of communication when dealing with matters of spirituality, and a film like 'Mother And Son' exists in the spiritual realm, alas, I will attempt to speak of this film in the hopes that someone may take note and open his heart to Sokurov's untangible creation. The soul of the film is the deep love between a dying mother and her loyal son. We begin with a frame of the mother laying in bed beneath a blanket, her stomach gently undulating, as she savors her final breaths. Her son lays beside her, caressing her hair, carefully pampering his ill stricken mother. They begin to speak about dreams, their voices slowly and mysteriously intertwine. We watch, listen, and think: "This all seems too private." Mother wishes to go for a walk, perhaps she knows it will be her last. The kind hearted son carries his mother, in his arms, across magnificent landscapes that captivate our soul. Sokurov has developed unique lenses which embrace rather then deter the 2-dimensional character of the cinema. Perhaps the first person to do so. What an enchanting result! The images, unlike any we've ever seen, resemble epic landscape paintings of 16th and 17th century masters. The sound design is outstanding. Pure sounds of acoustic ecology - birds, winds, water, leaves, fire, wood... I believe Sokurov was trying to capture G-D's glory in this film. There is one particular frame of the skies, with clouds filling the top of the frame, and distant snowy mountains on the bottom. This frame is G-D looking down on the mother and her son, she is being summoned to the heavens. To place this work in the cinematic universe is challenging. Sokurov, like his Russian predecesors, Tarkovsky and Parajanov, are conservative artists commited to the glorification of G-D, which does not agree with what most world auteurs are doing, even the greatest ones. Unfortunately, there are very few of the spiritual filmmakers left. Tarr, Angelopolous, Hou Hsiao Hsien, Kiarostami, perhaps a few more. There seems to be little place for these films in the current state of our world but thankfully there are still those of us, albiet few of us, who watch and appreciate these masterpieces. Let us hope the future will be a better one for cinema.
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