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The Worst Film Ever

Thanks for the memories!

People are voting emotionally.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

This movie was tragically bad.Why anyone would compare this mess to the works of Tarkovsky or Terrence Malick is completely baffling to me and probably will be to you, too. I loved Russian Ark, but this was simply a poorly made student film with no passion, no zeal, and no interesting qualities whatsoever. Some of the silent and slow moments were rather meditative, but I would've much rather have seen this as a short film. The story was dull and trite, and frankly I didn't appreciate the message or idea at all. A mother who loved her son that much should let him go into the world and be his own man. That's the definition of true love, not keeping him around to wilt along with she. And if the young man loved his mother, he would "let her go" rather than allow her to suffer and strain in such pain. Maybe it's a philosophy conflict between myself and this director, but I did not see this movie as a love poem, but rather an example of true selfishness on the part of both characters.And the cinematography. Oy vey! This is where I was most confused, as already suggested. When I saw the box for the DVD, I was already a bit surprised to see the description of the film (which concentrated almost solely on how beautiful the movie looked). From the pictures, it looked like a made-for-TV movie in some backwater E. European town...... and indeed, when I put the movie on, that's exactly what it looked like. Such splendid landscapes, to be sure, but sullied completely by ridiculous filters that distorted each view and that put a faded greenish brown tincture to everything. This did not represent a dream or a hallucination or the "act of decay" for me. It just looked bad. Really bad. And even beyond the silly, obfuscating filters and the like, the compositions were horrendous. There was no semblance of aesthetic responsibility in the creation of the shots. Looked like they just randomly set the actors in various places and blindly left the camera wherever it would stand. If Lars von Trier were to try yet again to make "the crappiest film ever" as he tends to joke about doing, he couldn't make something that looked this awful. For people to excuse the terrible narrative concept for the cinematography is just strange. Perhaps I need to see it on the big screen?Thank goodness this one is so short. Ugh. Avoid at all costs!

This film is exquisite: it was like looking through the lens of Constable or Turner. The world is seen in a new way and the action takes place within it.I have read critical views on "painterly" films but I don't agree with them. Cinema is a visual experience , essentially and the plot etc. is a given. Russian films do express a strange dark beauty and there are lines in the film worthy of any great Russian writers: The Father's love crucifies the Son , and the Son allows himself to be crucified from "Father and Son" the same director, Sukarov.Another example of brilliant Russian cinema!The mother son relationship is almost brutally fragile but the devotion of the son, carrying his mother into the landscape provided the focus. Brilliant

The first impression one has upon viewing Sokurov's film is of formal aesthetic parallels with Tarkovsky's cinematography (long takes, his free use of natural sounds, and the unaffectedness of his actors). Both directors concern themselves with philosophical questions of the human existence and strive to express the inner reality of their beings. However, whereas Tarkovsky' main characters are spiritually oppressed, struggling to overcome and escape their fates, Sokurov's characters films are resigned to and accepting of their oppression. Tarkovsky's cinema is one of striving toward spiritual liberation, whereas Sukorov's cinema is one of enduring spiritual submission.In "Mother and Son," one is struck above all by the rather unusual cinematography, starting with the very first images following the credits. Many scenes have the flatness of a painting instead of the usual three-dimensionality of films. Indeed, "Mother and Son" is a "picture-film," where the images, the perspectives are routinely distorted and flattened to two dimensions. Sokurov's intentions are clear so far has he is striving to give his film the appearance of an icon or of a religious painting of the Quattro cento. I would also add that some of the indoor scenes, in particular the opening one, reminds one of the founder of the German expressionist school, Edvard Munch. The distortion of the characters' physiques and the claustrophobic atmosphere of the room reeking of death also contribute to this identification with Munch's most famous paintings and engravings.All through this production, Sokurov distorts his images in various ways, using panes of glass placed in front or to the side of the lens, mirrors, and even paint on the camera lens itself. Through these effects, the characters, objects, and nature appear "compressed" and distorted, which then serves as a metaphor for the turmoil of the soul. This turmoil is exacerbated further by the sense of a timelessness which permeates the film. Time seems suspended by the stillness of the characters. The long takes (there are fifty-eight shots in a film which runs for seventy-three minutes) also give a sense of stillness, which make us lose all sense of time."Mother and Son" is almost a silent film. The silence which prevails for most of the film is deepened by discrete, natural sounds emanating from beyond the screen, accentuating the sense of isolation from the rest of the world: running water, thunder, wind, bird calls, etc. In this respect, Nature is an important character, visually as well as aurally. The appearance of a steaming train or of a sailboat far in the distance only serves to remind us of the isolation of these two characters. These natural sounds are mixed together with some very subtle original music by Mikhail Ivanovich, together with a few musical segments from Mikhail Glinka and Otmar Nussio. The dialogue is spare, and these exchanges can hardly be considered conversation. The characters have gone beyond talking to express their thoughts and inner feelings to each other: they even have the same dreams. No philosophical discussions on the meaning of love or death ever arrive to reinforce what is evident through the imagery.Finally, one will notice that the two actors are non-professional: Alexei Ananishnov is "in real life" a mathematics professor, and it is the only film ever made by Gudrun Geyer, who had no previous acting experience. The characters in the film are present, but they are not acting. This is in keeping with Sokurov intentions to relate an experience and not a story."Mother and Son"'s themes are about one of the deepest relationships which can exist on the Earth, the love between a mother and her son, and the solitude of the death experience. The film explores the remaining moments between the son and his mother on her unavoidable journey toward death. Nothing else exists for these two characters, about whom we know nothing. Sokurov does not reveal anything about their past, nor about their future. The present moment on their road together toward the doors of death is the only subject of importance. They are as one being in a strange, lonely, but beautiful world. But this intimate relationship will soon be rent asunder by Death, and Sokurov shows us that in spite of their close love relationship, in the end death is still a personal, private, isolating experience for both of them. As the mother drifts in and out of consciousness, the son's attitude as he faces the inescapable end goes from somewhat cheery and reassuring in front of his conscious mother, to total anguish and desperation when he is alone in the woods.If the journey of these characters is a mystical experience, it is not a religious one. God is never mentioned nor alluded to. Sokurov denies a deity, but not some indeterminate afterlife.The film's ending is still ambiguous, as Sokurov leaves open the possibility that the mother is still alive when the son returns from his walk. In the scene just before the son leaves the house, his mother lies in her bed-coffin, a white butterfly rests on her fingers. In many cultures, from the Christian Irish to the Baluba from central Zaire, the soul of a person emerges from the cocoon (the grave) and flies away in the form of a butterfly. Sokurov leaves us guessing at the end of the film: on the mother's gray, emaciated hand, the butterfly is still there."Mother and Son" is an experience much more than it is a film. We are confronted with a continuum of painted scenes, as we would in any museum. We are drawn into each scene as we would be drawn into each painting, reflecting on content which raises in us a myriad of emotions -- some from long ago, forgotten -- or provokes new reflection. All of these emotions appear and disappear in dream-like fashion and in so doing, we partake in the mystery and complexity of the love between a mother and her son.

This film is about the relationship between a sick mother and her son. (surprise.) Surely, this isn't for the average viewer: narrative is slow, events nonexistent; the film consists mostly of painting-like "still-lives" with very little dialogue. The mother and son walk along the beautiful sceneries (the film is done on the island of Rügen, by the coast of Germany), approach each other, take contact by embracing and hugging.Nick Cave, the rock singer, said somewhere that this film is the most beautiful he has ever seen. I agree that it is maybe Sokurov's best: the twisted images of the landscapes, great camera work and almost meditative feeling are something I love to see in the cinema - if nothing else, just as an attempt this is a great film, instead of all the run-of-the-mill "narratives" we come across.Beautiful. Word.