Madeo (Bong Joon-ho, 2009)

The title Mother alludes concisely to 'mother's pride' or 'mother knows best', and these are amongst the notes touched on in a story of a poor herbalist mother who cossets her child-minded adult son to the best of her ability until he's accused and convicted of the murder of a local schoolgirl after a drunken night's blackout. With the police unhelpful, she then sets about playing detective and finding the true culprit.
Bong Joon-ho, perhaps best known for 2006's tongue-in-cheek monster eco-horror The Host, is an odd fish as directors go: he wilfully mixes up registers and throws in non-sequitur incidents, which at the worst of times leads to an adulteration of all the colours on the palette, as seen here in the opener which is far too comic in relation to what follows. Yet later on we get the benefits of his method, as it works to throw the viewer off balance and liable to be genuinely unprepared for the twists that occur. Supported by Kim Hye-ja's powerful performance as the frantically possessive mother, it ends up as a thoroughly unconventional thriller and all the better for it.

7/10