Mother (2009) — South Korea

Mother was South Korea's entry in the Academy Awards for best foreign film. If it was a western movie, it would be rich for Freudian analysis, but since it's Korean, that's probably a false lead. Yoon Do-joon is twenty-seven years old and lives with his single mother. She sells medicinal herbs and practices acupuncture. Do-joon's father makes no appearance in the film. Do-joon is clearly a social misfit, and maybe even mentally retarded. He sleeps in the same bed with his mother, who obsesses and frets about him. Sexual taunts provoke him to prove himself a man, which in turn leads to a murder charge and time in prison. But he's an easy scapegoat for lazy law enforcement, and this puts his mother into maternal overdrive to solve the mystery of his guilt or innocence. "You and I are one," she tells Do-joon when he's in prison. She goes to extreme lengths to save her son, the only object of her love, which efforts result in a double tragedy by the end of the film. In Korean with English subtitles.