Mutter und sohn

A young man lives with his mother. She is very sick, dying actually. But they were all along pretending to eachother that nothing was going on. He loves his mother and does everything in his power to make everything as good as possible for her.
The film is the work of an artist. It is full of pictures - paintings - that gives the feeling that you are wandering a gallery filled with late 1800 century art, romantic landscape with dark colours and atmosphere. The people on the paintings, that is the mother and the son, have an almost religious feeling over them.
In the film they are isolated from other people, that is, no other people are shown in picture. We sence the presence of other people when the son reads old postcards. And we see a train comming rushing forwards into the picture, just like Tunners famous painting.
It takes strength and security to attemt and present such a creation. To have the guts to let the camera wait so long in every moment. Still, there is not enough time. Just like when one looks at a painting, one wants to go into the picture, enjoy the entirety and the details, the composition, the perspectives and still have time to notice everything that is not visible.
According to Alexandr Sokurov himself, he is very inspired by Caspar David Friedrich, a german artist who was active during the first half of the 1800 century. This man dedicated himself to romantic painting and was most significant in the landscape painting, in which he was inspired by the englishman Turner. typical for the color composition of Friedrich is that close o the observer the colours are dark, and the further away in the distance you get the lighter the colours get. This ofcourse implies his view on man, the view that ruled during this time. We live in the external world where it is dark, but we strive to be part of something higher, for some of us this means beeing one with the nature.
In many of the films at Stockholm film festival the attractive idéworld is reached with the help of drugs. Sokurov bring about, through Friedrich, another higher reality through his artistic ambition that gives a state of meditative calm.
Helena Hederberg

Premiärstatus
Svensk premiär: Orig. titel
MAT’I SYN: Medverkande
Gudrun Geyer, Andrei Ananishnov: Producent
Thomas Kufus: Manus
Yuri Arabov: Foto
Alexei Fyodorov: Musik
Mikhail Glinka, Otmar Nussio, Giuseppe Verdi: Talat språk
russian /eng subs