Tea Shop: Mother of Mine ( Finland

Monday, December 30, 2013

Mother of Mine ( Finland - 2005 )

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Let's see some melodrama. FilmBulb is still in Europe and will be there for another two or three posts. Mother of Mine, directed by Klaus Haro, is a Finland - Sweden film, set in the World War II, but as you can guess from the title, this not a war film.

Plot

At the beginning of World War II, Sweden wanted to help its war-torn neighbor Finland by offering Finnish children temporary homes with Swedish families. There were more than 70,000 "war children". On such kid is Eero (Topi Majaniemi), who has lost his father while serving the country, his mother Kristi (Marjaana Maijala) is reluctant to send him first, but couldn't risk.

Eero, is sent to a scenic seaside village to live with a family. The family is of three, Hajlmar Jonssen, his wife Signe (Maria Lundqvist) and her ailing wheelchair bound father. Eero doesn't like to stay with them, his thoughts are with his mother Kristi and on the other hand Signe-Eero relationship doesn't go well, due to the cultural and other differences. Did Eero return to his mother Kristi is the rest of the story. ?

The film starts with present day Eero, who is old now ( around 50's ), asking his mother about the war and he also informs her that there is a funeral invitation for him to attend.

My Take

The film set a debate in my mind, whether the decisions taken by Kristi at certain time was right or wrong, but I felt some were opportunistic.

The other thing that struck me is the story, not sure if it's real, but the events are true. When you see this film you will realize that you have seen this kind of story before, but the catch in this film is to place the story among the historical event.

Locations- It's beautifully set in the Swedish countryside. The locations are like serene pictures, certainly not CGI, is it!! something like Windows XP Napa Valley desktop. The farmhouse is equally unique and so the church on the hill.

Mother and son separation scenes are touchy. The actors, particularly the boy and Signe’ performance is real good. As a good film, I felt a lump in my throat in certain scenes. Mother of Mine, in-spite of being good, it is relatively unknown in World Cinema circles. Not sure, why this film was overlooked.