Mother of Mine (2005) Film Review
Eero’s competing loyalties are shown in this poster image for “Mother of Mine”
Watching “Mother of Mine” (2005), I could not help but think of the Ukrainian children forcibly removed from their homeland during the ongoing war initiated by Russia. There is obviously a difference between the involuntary deportation conducted by the Russians and voluntary deportation, which occurs in “Mother of Mine”, but psychological damage is sustained by the children regardless.
Iryna Tuliakova, a family relations expert who oversees the reintegration of Ukrainian children returning to their nation, stated “...where there are kids, there’s noise. But when children come back from deportation, you barely hear a sound. These children are silent.” The statement uncannily describes Eero, the main character in director Klaus Haro’s “Mother of Mine”.
Finland, allied with Germany at the start of World War II, sent about 70,000 children to live in Sweden for the duration of hostilities. While it was a voluntary program, “Mother of Mine” implies that there was intense pressure from authorities to comply with the policy. Eero’s father is killed early in the conflict and his mother, Kirsti (Marjaana Maijala), is overwhelmed with grief. When a contingent of social workers appear at their home, nine-year-old Eero (Topi Majaniemi) asks his mother why she is allowing the strangers to send him away. A gauzy bedroom curtain separates the characters as they converse; a visual metaphor for the psychological barrier that is forming between them.
A scene follows at the docks, where young Finns say goodbye to their parents. Many of the children are distressed and refuse to leave until they are forcibly lifted onto the boat headed to Sweden. After landing, Eero observes that pretty girls with accommodating smiles are the first to be placed with foster families. He also observes siblings torn apart and placed in separate homes.
Eero lands in an isolated farmhouse, only to discover that his foster parents expected a girl. Hjalmar (Michael Nyqvist), his new father, is patient and kind but Signe (Maria Lundqvist), his wife, barely hides her contempt for the child. Signe forces Eero to speak Swedish, then mocks the novice’s pronunciation. She has no qualms about corporal punishment, either. “Mother of Mine” is Signe’s journey as much as Eero’s, however. She gradually softens towards Eero and reveals that she feels responsible for the drowning death of her six-year-old daughter. By the end of his sojourn, Eero feels closer to Signe than to his biological mother.
Eero’s break with Kirsti is caused in part by their separation, but also by Kirsti’s love affair with a German soldier. She considers following her lover to Germany and writes to Signe, asking her to keep Eero. The boy surreptitiously reads the letter and is crushed. He does not, however, intercept Kristi’s next letter in which she recants her request.
The story is told in flashback as the adult Eero (Esko Salminen) prepares to attend Signe’s funeral. In one of the contemporaneous scenes, the now elderly Kirsti (Aino-Maija Tikkanen) asks Eero why he remained silent when they reunited at the end of the war. Eero’s response is crushing. Without malice, he asks “Don’t you understand? You were no longer my mother.” The reaction shot of Kirsti could have been held longer, as this exchange reveals the essence of their ruptured relationship.
Grief and reconciliation form the thematic basis of “Mother of Mine”. Eero’s point-of-view predominates and the child is baffled by the disparate forms of adult grieving, as well as the failure to have his own anguish validated. Eero is at the mercy of a conflict that takes his father’s life, his home, and the assurance that his mother loves him. This translates into an adulthood of flattened emotions for Eero. (The filmmakers reinforce this idea by presenting the childhood scenes in color and the adult story in black-and-white.) “Mother of Mine” ends with Eero finding a new way forward, but it requires the courage to face difficult truths with a mother who has wounded him deeply.
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