Films worth seeing in San Jose at Cinequest 21
MAMMA GÓGÓ
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Unfortunately, not all nursing homes are perfect for containing their patients, especially, when Alzheimer patients can be quite deceiving, like Mamma Gógó often demonstrates. |
There is a time when children of their parents need to make a decision on what to do with them when they can no longer take care of themselves. Not because their elderly bodies start failing them, but because they start to become oblivious to their own surroundings, causing physical damage around them, as well as affecting the people who are most dearest to them.
Mamma Gógó is a semi-autobiographical film by director, Fridrik Thór Fridriksson, whose film “Children of Nature” received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Film in 1992. It was the first and only time Iceland was ever represented in this category at the Oscars. Fridriksson’s latest film is based on his personal, and at times, comedic experiences with his real life mother who had Alzheimer’s disease, while his professional career was collapsing under him, at the same time.
Ironically, the movie opens up with a premiere of “the director’s” (Hilmir Snær Guðnason) latest film called, “Children of Nature”, which from the audience reactions, looks like it is already doomed for commercial failure. His original intention was to make an artistic, political and insightful film targeted for a much older audience, but later on, realizes that this particular audience doesn’t go to the movies. As time passes, and hardly anyone sees his film, he optimistically envisions that it will be well accepted in the US, and maybe even be nominated for an Academy Award, and save the Icelandic Film industry. No one buys this opinion, except for his always supportive loving mother.
As his own personal debt starts to pile up, he starts to have a string of bad luck. His vehicle gets towed away while he helplessly watches from his bedroom window; his credit card gets cut up in small pieces by a waitress who tells him that she was instructed to do so by the credit card company; and even the Hollywood blockbuster movie deal that he thought was locked in as a director, became null and void.
In the meantime, Mamma Gógó’s (Kristbjörg Kjeld) sharp wit and memory starts to slowly fade and deteriorate. She leaves the stove unoccupied while boiling pasta, slowly drifting asleep in the living room while watching her sons’ movie. Her neighbor, aware of the smoke from her apartment, pounds on her door to get her out. A few days later, she gets out of bed and steps onto a puddle of water, forgetting to turn the facet off, flooding the apartment below. She even becomes suspicious with the children, falsely accusing them of taking her keys and gold jewelry, when she misplaced the items herself.
Without hesitation, her children decide to put Mamma Gógó into a full time nursing home, even with the “director’s” ongoing financial problems. None of the children were motivated to put up with her full time. The director’s life, already in turmoil, needed to rebalance his own life, as even his loving wife starts to doubt his credibility the way things are going.
As Mamma Gógó starts tuning out of the present and hallucinating more into the past, she starts having romantic visions of her late beloved husband. Contrasting black and white shots, representing their nostalgic youth fifty years ago, intertwined with vivid colors, representing a time much closer to the present day, we see the couple together enraptured with each other, even after 50 years.
The director realizes that even with all his personal turmoil and his career tumbling down, his mother was the most important person who he cared about above all else, and that he wasn’t quite able to say everything that he wanted to say to her before she tuned out of the world. It’s almost like the curtain went down suddenly on a show that you thought would continue.
Writer/Director Fridrik Thór Fridriksson, does an admirable job in balancing the compassion and humor in his script, as well as eloquently directing the fine cast, whose two leads, Kjeld and Guðnasonm were quite moving. Also worth noting is the breathtaking cinematography by Ari Kristinsson , who captured much of Iceland’s natural landscape beauty, and also Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson’s exquisite score.
This was Iceland’s official submission to this year’s Academy Awards.
Reviewed by Marcus Siu
Director: Fridrik Thór Fridriksson; Producers: Fridrik Thór Fridriksson, Gudrún Edda Thórhannesdóttir; Writer: Fridrik Thór Fridriksson; Cinematographer: Ari Kristinsson; Editors: Sigvaldi J. Kárason, Tomas Potocny, Andres Refn; Music: Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson; Cast: Kristbjörg Kjeld, Hilmir Snær Guðnason, Gunnar Eyjólfsson, Margrét Vilhjálmsdóttir; Country: Iceland; Language: Icelandic (w/ English subtitles); Length: 90 min.; Genre: Drama
Mama Gógó, Preceded by the short film, Sunday’s Best, plays on March 2nd at 7pm at the California Theatre, March 4th at 7:30pm at the Camera 12, and March 6th at 11:15am at the Camera 12.
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