[HanCinema's Film Review] "Where Is My Son?"

In the rural outskirts of Andong a seventy-year old man pushes his ninety-five year old mother home in her wheelchair. And that's about all there is to "Where Is My Son??"- a documentary focused almost entirely on ambience. There's the love between a son and his mother, the sense of peace that comes as the elderly mother slowly but steadily moves toward the end of her life, and then there are the visuals of rural Andong, where traditional architecture and greenery overwhelms every shot.

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"Where Is My Son??" is the latest in a long line of films this year that have taken place in the Korean countryside- films which sadly have little prospect of international release, even if director Ahn Jae-min-I's work was featured at the EBS International Documentary Festival back in 2013. This is because movies like "Where Is My Son??" are produced for people with little stake in art and more stake in living, and appreciating human environments.

The human aspect of the environment is an essential aspect to the ambience here. Rural Andong isn't a park, nor is it a tourist trap. People actually live there. Mostly old people who are all there for the same reason. It's quiet and pretty. Moving out of the area is going to involve a lot of work and for what? To go to a nursing home somewhere? One of the nice parts of being old is that you're never really in a hurry to go anywhere, so the fact that you have to move slowly isn't that big a deal. You can just enjoy the scenery.

Of course the bad part of being old is that, well, you're old and there's not much time left. For that reason, it's nice to have progeny. A son who you can trust to be there and take care of you, the same way you took care of them when they were young. One of the taglines for "Where Is My Son??" goes something like "for your mother, who taught you how to love", and the sentiment is an appropriate one for the film's overall tone.

It reminds me of the last time I saw my grandmother a few years back. I'd gone to her sleepy, beautiful Oregon town with my aunt. My grandmother is still healthy enough to move around on her own power- somewhat miraculous given she's the same age as the woman in "Where Is My Son??", but I'm getting off track. The point is, every night, my aunt made a point of sleeping in the same bad as her mother.

While this isn't something I thought very much of at the time, having seen "Where Is My Son??", that memory comes flowing back to me mainly because now I understand why they did that. Of all the memories made over the course of a lifetime, the moments spent with a mother, for those fortunate enough to have such memories, are the ones that take the most prominence as time goes by. That made not be an especially deep observation, but it's a poignant one and I'm glad "Where Is My Son?" gave me the impetus to come up with it.

Review by William Schwartz

"Where Is My Son?" is directed by Ahn Jae-min-I