Mother and Son

Mother and Son (Mat i syn, 1997) is a drama by Alexander Sokurov that you can watch online on iFILM. Seventy-three near-wordless minutes: a son tends his dying mother in a wooden house far from anywhere, and the whole world shrinks to the two of them.

There is no plot in the ordinary sense. The son carries his mother in his arms, reads to her, takes her on one last walk across the fields and along the edge of the forest. Sokurov shot through custom glass filters and mirrors, stretching and warping the frame until it looks like a canvas by the German Romantics — Caspar David Friedrich above all. Aleksei Ananishnov and Gudrun Geyer barely act in the usual way; they simply exist inside this stilled time.

A Russian-German production, it became one of the quietest films about death and love in European cinema. This isn't entertainment or a story with turns — it's a meditation you either give yourself to whole or watch pass you by. For viewers who love slow art cinema and painting more than action, it lingers for years. Stream Mother and Son (1997) online on iFILM.