Mother
Dir: Bong Joon-ho

A desperately poor Korean mother (Hye-ja Kim), who is committed to her only son’s well-being, makes her meagre living selling traditional herbal medicines and practicing acupuncture. Her son, Dong-joo (Bin Won), is a social misfit with a very slow mind who hangs out with manipulative hoods. When he is arrested for the death of a
neighbourhood girl, his mother is the only one willing to look out for him. She becomes a single-minded crusader and amateur detective, stopping at nothing to find the real killer.

The mother and son, at first, seem like comical caricatures, playing out the type of extreme vengeance drama so popular in Korean pop cinema. But as their motivations and history gradually reveal themselves, the characters gain depth and become more sympathetic . The great acting, uncomfortable characters and gripping mystery/detective plot make this a cinematic treat. Director Bong Joon-ho (The Host) is as good at mysteries as he is at making big-budget action movies.
J’ai tué ma mère
Dir: Xavier Dolan
Another new mother/son movie at TIFF, J’ai tué ma mère, is a great family drama, this one set in Quebec. Hubert (Xavier Dolan) is a teenager who does not get along with his mother (Anne Dorval). He is smart and well read, but is not doing well in school — he’d rather spend his time at his boyfriend Antonin’s house than in his own home. Hubert and his mother both try to win each other’s affection, but most of their conversations quickly devolve into explosive shout-fests.

This low-budget movie was written and directed by the 19-year-old who plays Hubert, and is partly based on his own experiences. Dolan has packed his movie with visual references to Quebecois and French artists (like Pierre + Gilles), poetry and songs. Characters named after Rimbaud quote Cocteau. Anne Dorval is excellent as his mother, and the two make a formidable team. This is a great first film.