Banner Film Festival honours motherhood in its February visit. Coming Sunday, four internationally acclaimed movies hit the screen of Lenin Balavadi in Thiruvananthapuram for its monthly fare. Starting with Pudovkin’s Mother at 9.30 am, it moves on to The Ballad of Narayama of Keisuke Kinoshita, Mehboob Khan’s Mother India and concludes with Aleksandr Sokurov’s Mother and Son.
Every month, the festival organised by Banner Film Society, comes with a bouquet of theme-based movies or the favourites picked by noted personalities of Malayalam cinema.
Mother, a screen tale of Maxim Gorky’s novel of the same title, stands testimony to the unconditional love a mother has for her son. The movie is set against the backdrop of the Tsarist rule during the Russian Revolution. The son, a revolutionary ideologue, is incarcerated for his activities. The mother who had earlier opposed his ideals, later joins the revolutionaries in a bid to free the prisoners. The uprising meets with an abrupt end with the mom-son duo getting killed by the troops of the Tsar.
The Ballad of Narayama calls our attention to a traditional practice in a 19th century Japanese village. According to the practice, a person aged 70 should die of starvation in a remote mountain after travelling to the place. Granny Orin, nearing 70, is readying herself to meet the fate, but her son Tatsuhei cannot bear losing his mother. Even the movie poster of this touching tale is designed in such a way as to strike a chord with a million hearts.
The sole entry from India, Mother India, highlights a virtuous mother, who stands for righteousness and dares to kill her own son for his wrongdoings for the larger good. Yesteryear actor Nargis has immortalised the role of Radha, the ‘mother’ of the village.
Filial gratitude is at its peak in Sokurov’s Mother and Son, the last in this edition.
A sick mother is in constant combat with her ill-health while the son, a young man, pampers the frail woman in the best way he can with his limited means and wares. The gripping tale has a 73 minute screen time.
