FILM OF THE WEEK
INTERVIEW | review: Äideistä parhain (Mother of Mine) |
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| Written by Boyd van Hoeij | |
| Friday, 13 January 2006 | |
Finland’s entry in the foreign language Oscar race is Äideistä parhain (Mother of Mine), a film that reunites two genres dearly loved by the Oscar voters: films set during a World War (be it one or two; in this case the latter) and films with a child as the main protagonist. The fictional story of just one of the 70.000 Finnish war children who were placed with foster parents in neutral Sweden while the Finns fought the Russians, Äideistä parhain is unnecessarily bookended by contemporary scenes that diminish the power of its central section. The story's quiet force stems mainly from the unaffected performances of young Topi Majaniemi as the young protagonist Eero and Swedish veteran actress Maria Lundqvist, who plays Eero’s unaccepting foster mother. Aesthetically misty – the film looks like it has been shot with a permanently hazed over lens – the film’s central theme is less nebulous; even the title explicitly refers to the mother-child relationship that is the crux of the story. The film’s screenplay, written by Jimmy Karlsson and Kirsi Vikman and based on the Heikki Hietamies novel, offers a stripped down, almost emotionally detached central story set during the war which becomes heartfelt through the extraordinary work of the actors as directed by Klaus Härö. Lundqvist and newcomer Majaniemi both disappear in their characters the way Heath Ledger did earlier this year to staggering effect in Brokeback Mountain, another Oscar contender. Together with Michael Nyqvist, who plays Lundqvist’s practical farmer husband, the actors deliver three reigned in yet emotionally raw performances that definitely strike a chord. Where the screenplay falters is in its present tense, where an aged Eero is invited to Sweden for the funeral of his foster mother and he decides to ask his own mother about her motives for sending him off during the war. These scenes feel contrived and do not feel part of the narrative in the way for example De Tweeling (Twin sisters) blended past and present versions of the same characters and themes into a coherent whole. These scenes should have either been cut or expanded because what little is there fails to connect to the film’s central theme of mother-son relationships in a meaningful way. Äideistä parhain thus has it in itself to score an Oscar nomination (and perhaps even a win) because it so clearly appeals to what the Academy likes. Its resemblance to best picture frontrunner Brokeback Mountain in terms of its powerful acting and its landscapes filmed in muted colours could only help it achieve this goal. With or without an Oscar however, Härö’s film contains enough raw emotional truth in its middle section to sit through the bookends to get there. Browse: amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.fr, amazon.de, dvdGO.es, internetbookshop.it, nl.bol.com, allposters.com. |
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