Mother of Mine
by Klaus Haro
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Aino-Maija Tikkanen, Brasse Brannstrom, Esko Salminen, Leif Andree, Marie GoranzonDirector: Klaus Haro
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Swedish (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 111 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-08-07
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Film Movement
Movie Reviews of Mother of Mine
Movie Review: Has Enough Time Passed? ....
Summary: 5 Stars
... for us to watch this poignant film about a child displaced by war, without remembering the issues of that war, or recalling our own or our families' roles in that war? "Mother of Mine" is set in Finland and southern Sweden in the last years of World War II, but war per se is only a backdrop, a cause without a Cause, to the tragedy of the boy Eero, whose father has been killed in battle and whose mother sends him away for his own safety. Eero is twelve years old, speaks only Finnish, but he is taken to live on a farm in Skåne, a rural province of Sweden, by an agency that transported at least 70,000 Finnish children as refugees to such safety. The Swedish family that accepts Eero has recently been traumatized by the death of their own child, and the Mother find's Eero's arrival horribly painful. Meanwhile, Eero's natural mother has found another "man" to love; she will eventually need to choose between the new man and the son whom she's given away.
The film narrative is structured as a 'flashback' in the mind of Eero as a 70-year-old man, summoned to the funeral in Sweden of his adoptive mother. Returning from Sweden, Eero visits his birth mother in a nursing home, despite the truth that he has never reconciled himself to her 'abandonment' of him. In a lovely reversal of the usual cinematography, the story of Eero's boyhood is filmed in color, while Eero's visitations after most of a lifetime are filmed in black-and-white.
The War, nevertheless, was a presence in my mind while watching this film, possibly because I spent some of my own childhood in Sweden, possibly because I'm just old enough to remember the post-war years clearly. Finland was aligned with Germany in that War; Eero's father fought against the "Allies", specifically against Russia, and Eero's mother worked for the German Occupation Forces. Her new lover was a German soldier. Sweden was purportedly a 'neutral' country, but Swedes of a certain age will forever feel a certain discomfort about that neutrality, which allowed the Germans to transit and attack Norway. At the same time, large numbers of Norwegian Jews fled to Sweden for asylum, and it's true that throngs of Finnish children were fostered during and after the War. It's also true that children of many nations were separated from the families and sheltered in foreign lands. The greatest WW II novel of all, in my opinion -- Austerlitz, by WG Sebald -- tells the story of a Jewish German boy rescued to exile in England.
Most viewers, I'm sure, will accept this film on its own a-polotical, a-historical terms. It's a potently sentimental story, a heart-render with an unexpectedly 'gentle' ending. The acting is incredible. Why is it that unknown, never-seen-before-or-again actors are so much more skillful in their portrayals on the screen than all the touted, overpaid, Oscar-acclaimed stars? Eh? Oh well ... Great photography, crisp editing, excellent dialogue (in Finnish and Swedish, but well subtitled). A fine movie for those who appreciate sentiment.
Summary of Mother of Mine
During World War II, more than 70,000 Finnish children were evacuated to neutral Sweden to avoid the conflict. Mother of Mine, the latest from the award-winning Klaus Haro (Elina), tackles that painful patch of history in a tale of 9-year-old Eero, a child who increasingly feels abandoned by his biological Finnish mother and yet not attached to his Swedish surrogate mom. When he is returned to Finland, his confusion intensifies.Similar DVD Movies
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