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Hi, my name is Tony

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and this is "Every Frame a Painting",

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where I analyze film form.

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There's actually a lot of
great videos on the internet

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analyzing movie content or themes,

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but I think we're missing stuff
about the actual form -

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you know, the pictures and the sound.

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Anyways, the movie
I want to talk about today

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is a fantastic example
of craft and art.

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This is Bong Joon-ho's film
"Mother", from 2009.

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If you haven't seen it,

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it's kind of a wrong man murder mystery,

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and if you don't know Bong Joon-ho,

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he's awesome.

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Dude is seriously the best.

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Be forewarned, there are
major spoilers for the whole film.

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If you don't want to be spoiled,
stop watching this and go watch the movie.

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Ready? Okay.

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So there's two techniques, combined,
that I want to bring up today.

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The first is shooting important
story moments in profile.

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The second is doing that
with a telephoto lens.

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So normally, you shoot an actor,
you want to see their face.

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If you bring the camera around to the front,

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it's generally a better way for us to
empathize or to see their emotions.

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If you play something off
the profile of someone's face,

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it's a little bit stranger.

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It has a starkness to it.

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Like this.

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Versus this.

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God. Stop. Oh god!

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Now here's the weird part.

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You throw on a telephoto lens,

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and that compresses space.

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We do it all the time
in movies for close-ups.

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It's more flattering

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and it blows out the background,
it gives this nice little bokeh.

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But when you do it in profile,

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it's not really a beauty shot.

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It hides something.

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Add a little camera operator shake,

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and it's like we can barely keep up.

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A lot of the major events
in this film are shot

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telephoto, in profile.

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Actually if you watch the movie again,

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you'll see that Bong very subtly

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gives away the important plot points

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versus the red herrings.

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So when Mother meets the junkman,

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who will turn out to be very important,

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watch the lens.

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Before that, when Mother
goes to apologize

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to the dead girl's family,

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watch how this
important moment plays.

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There's actually a nice
hidden cut in there.

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Check that out.

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If you're wondering whether
this is a particular quirk of Bong's,

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the answer is: kinda.

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This is the big Act I turning point

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in his monster movie "The Host".

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Again: telephoto, profile.

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But here, you can
kinda understand why.

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This is a point of view shot
of another character,

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and there's actually a nice visual rhyme.

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Head on.

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Head on.

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Profile.

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And I don't wanna suggest that
it's unusual to shoot things like this.

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For example…

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Man, that's awesome.

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But it's still really weird
to use it in "Mother".

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I mean, who's watching?

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Why's the director
playing so many big moments

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of his lead actress at right angles
to the camera, in close-up?

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Then you get to the climax.

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Big spoilers ahead.

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We find out that the son,

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Do-joon, who we've spent the whole movie
believing is probably innocent?

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Well, he actually
did commit the murder.

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The only witness is the junkman.

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His mother kills the guy.

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And then she tries
to clean up the blood.

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Oh hey, look at this shot.

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So that's why he shot those
big moments telephoto, in profile.

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It puts us slightly further away
from the characters.

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It reminds us that we don't know
everything in the story;

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that a lot is hidden from us,

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or it's far away and it's hazy to see.

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It turns us into witnesses
who can't do anything about it.

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But once we do see it,

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we know what we saw.

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In fact, that's kinda
the great thing about this film.

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You start the movie watching
a character you've never seen before

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dancing in a field.

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You can see her face,

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but you don't understand
why she feels this way.

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You just trust that
the movie will explain it.

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Then at the end,
you see her dancing again.

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Telephoto, in profile.

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And you don't really understand her
any better than you did at the beginning.

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For two hours,
the biggest bedrock of this movie

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is that we know, for a fact,
that she loves her son.

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And at the end, we see all this
has brought on her.

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If you can't tell, I'm a big fan
of this movie and of Bong Joon-ho.

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I also really wish more
mainstream directors

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would be ballsy enough
to shoot their big plot moments

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like this.

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Instead of like this.

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Agh. God!
I gotta get a drink.