The Most Ordinary Hell, Family: <We Need to Talk about Kevin> and <Mother>

What is the most fascinating motif when associated with psychological thrillers?

Personally, I think the essential ingredient for a psychological fear is “unfamiliarity.” We become anxious when we see something never seen – a potential threat. Then what is unfamiliarity? Obviously, the opposite of the usual. That is why unfamiliarity makes us more uneasy when it is mixed within familiar things. An apparent conspicuity like a black ink stain on a white paper – a subject matter that can highlight this contrast the best, has to be found in the closest places. Thus, I believe the most effectively ‘scary’ cinematic background is none other than family. When the fence named family, that everyone has and is comfortable with, turns into a threat, the fence can choke us the way a confined space scares a claustrophobic person. In this issue’s film review, I’d like to introduce two movies that twisted the subject ‘family’ in an interesting way to present a gruesome thriller. Since I myself am prone to jumpscares and gory scenes, movies introduced in this article are far from, traditionally speaking, the horror genre. However, I guarantee that they will offer you a hair-raising, even traumatic experience.

We Need to Talk about Kevin

First film is We Need to Talk about Kevin (2011) directed by Lynne Ramsay. The story is proceeded by cross-cutting the present where mother Eva (Tilda Swinton) goes to visit her imprisoned son Kevin (Ezra Miller), and the past, starting Kevin’s birth, that has led them to the tragedy of the present. This film, which would have been overwhelming enough for Tilda Swinton and Ezra Miller’s acting, enhances the quality by a sophisticated work of art. The opening scene, constructed solely out of images without a word or any dramatic situation, is truly a masterwork. White curtains fluttering in the wind coming through the open window, the incessant sound of sprinklers, and the red mess of the tomato festival following right after. An array of these seemingly unrelated images shocks you only after it is connected to the catastrophe at the conclusion.

Basically, thriller is a genre that makes us watch a fuse burning into a hidden pile of explosive. The key is to carry the tension that it might explode at any moment until the end. We Need to Talk about Kevin, while maintaining a dry tone, keeps reminding us of the eccentric energy boiling below the surface in almost every scene. In one scene, for instance, Kevin’s little sister Celia loses one eye. While Eva suspects that Kevin intentionally did it, Kevin gobbles a lychee served on the table. This easily is one of the most terrifying scenes of the film. Above this, the movie is adept at amplifying the audience’s anxiety by the usage of indirect film language. The moment the “bomb” explodes, as we can infer from Kevin in prison, is when Kevin turns into a real monster and commits a certain crime. The movie cold-temperedly, but wildly depicts the mother-son relationship constantly distorted until they reach the point of lunacy.

Since the movie follows Eva’s perspective, it is easy to see Kevin as an evil who destroyed her life. In hindsight, however, the real tragedy of this film is that we don’t know who to blame for the birth of this monster. For travel writer Eva, the birth of Kevin took away freedom – motivation of her life – thus, Kevin maybe was never destined to be loved from the very first moment. If so, was Kevin’s demonism merely a struggle to be loved? Did Eva want to love Kevin, but just did not know how? Focusing on the details, you will realize Kevin and Eva’s similarities are constantly emphasized. At the ending, Eva asks “Why?” for the first time ever to Kevin who is being moved to an adult prison. It is a far too late clue of a communication between mother and son that has already collapsed. It depends on the audience to read Kevin’s response and their eyes looking at each other in this ending scene.

Mother

Second film – and the first Korean film introduced on Frenzi – is Mother (2009). It is a hidden masterpiece of globally renowned director Bong Joon-ho, presenting his most dreary and artistic aspect. It shares many similarities with We Need to Talk about Kevin in that they are both stories of mother and son, and tell a story around an unrevealed crime. But unlike Kevin and Eva who were literally enemies, mother Hye-ja (Kim Hye-ja) and son Do-joon’s (Won Bin) relationship has an unspeakable strangeness in it. It is a weird motherhood filled with overprotection, obsession, and an odd sexual tension even. The main plot follows a mother that fights to prove his son (with an intellectual problem) Do-joon’s innocence, who is arrested as a prime suspect in a murder case. It is a film that doesn’t hide its peculiarity, with trigger factors scattered everywhere, but there is an undeniable charm to the unique and subtly shamanistic vibe.

Compared to We Need to Talk about Kevin, Mother focuses more on mystery and detective story. It shows how a crooked maternal instinct ends up in the course of trying to reveal the truth. How evil can a mother be in order to protect “my lovely son?” The film tenaciously sticks to this uncomfortable moral question through actress Kim Hye-ja, known as the image of “Korea’s mother.” Not relying on the public power, mother struggles to find out the truth of the case only by herself. What she eventually faces, however, are inconvenient truths that she never wanted to remember or believe. The most horrifying scenes of the film are not murder scenes, but two decisive scenes in which those truths rise above the surface (at the prison visit in the second act, and at the bus terminal at the end). And after all, as Hye-ja rejects all the truth and chooses to stay as “mother,” should we see her as a mother, or a monster? Such dilemma overlaps with that of Kevin; it is only the difference between loving (Mother), and being loved (Kevin).

The most impressive scenes of Mother are of course the opening and the ending. While the opening image of We Need to Talk about Kevin is a puzzle piece that fits with the narrative at the ending, Opening and ending of Mother work as parentheses semantically enclosing the whole story. The film starts with Hye-ja dancing alone out of nowhere, and ends with her dancing in the crowd of middle-aged women in a bus. The opening scene is shot on tripod with a wide angle, and the ending scene is shot with a shaky cam and a backlight behind – such cinematic expression creating a totally different context from the same dance, definitely deserves an admiration. When we cannot distinguish Hye-ja from other women in the bus anymore, Hye-ja’s individual story expands to the stories of every “mother.” As long as we are a member of a family, we can be Eva, or Hye-ja, or Kevin, or Do-joon. That is why a story about family always evokes an inner fear deep down below.

- Jaehyun