"Madre" or "Mother" is a Spanish Spaniah-language short film made in 2016 and it premiered in 2017 and actually rather early in 2017, so it was a long road with many awards for this one until it finally managed to get nominated for an Oscar recently. The oldest of the five nominees in the live action short film category 2019. The writer and director is Rodrigo Sorogoyen, a really prolific Spanish filmmaker and certainly more experienced than the filmmakers in this category usually are. Same can be said about the cast. The two female actors we see are enjoying long careers and even the boy you only hear has appeared in more stuff than you'd expect already. We have mother and daughter (around the ages of 60 and 30) at home talking and the mother is wondering if the daughter has a new man in her life. Then a call from France comes in and it is the daughter's son who is there on holiday with his father, the man who is divorced from the woman the boy is calling. But the boy is alone somewhere at a beach in France as we find out quickly. The woman keeps calling friends who could help as well as the police to get help and find out what's going on and why the boy is not with his father. Eventually as the tension rises we find out that another man is approaching the son, probably not a police man as we find out from his activities, but it is unclear who he is because the battery on the son's phone has run low and is eventually empty the worst moment of all. Quite a coincidence, maybe too much of a coincidence? Anyway, I personally thought the man was harmless wondering why there is a little boy alone at the beach with no other person watching him over. This is of course also the most likely idea, but the woman is so scared and worried about her son being out there alone in a foreign country that she immediately expects the worst. Which could be true as well that the man is a predator, but we never find out. And never will. One of the film's most interesting aspects here is that we are always with the mother in terms of what she knows about what's going on. We see the beach at the very beginning and very end and it does not look pleasant, certainly this was the filmmaker's idea that seeing the beach after the film feels much more unpleasant than before when we knew nothing about what was going on. Other than that, the young woman seems really competent and has great efforts and ideas and organization talent what she can do and ask to make her son better. Already the question about the bars on the phone is one that I probably would not have thought of. I think it was a good short, already proven by the fact that I genuinely wondered what happened to the boy (and the father). It is deserving of an Oscar nomination. I have seen 3 of the nominees so far and I would put it above the Bulger film quality-wise and below Fauve. Children in danger in deserted ares seems to have been a thing at the Oscars these days. Go watch Madre. It is certainly worth these under 20 minutes.
7 Reviews
Well made...difficult to watch.
planktonrules17 February 2019
Warning: Spoilers
Today I went to the annual showing of the Oscar Nominated Live Action Shorts. I've gone to these showings for at least a decade and must admit that this year's batch was the most god-awful films....all of them very depressing and a few so depressing that I left the theater wanting to shoot myself!! Of the five, "Madre" was among the more depressing and was VERY difficult to watch. If you have young children or have experienced sexual abuse, please think twice (or three time) before you watch the film.
Aside from a set-up shot of the beach (which was used twice), "Madre" is set entirely in an apartment in Spain. A mother and grandmother are about to leave when the mother receives a phone call from her 6 year-old son. He tells her he's at the beach...all alone....and has no idea where his daddy is! Not surprisingly, the mother is frantic...and the film mostly consists of the mother talking with her son as well as contacting the police about this. The ending is vague....and will leave most shaken.
If I were to nominate someone for the best performance in all the shorts, I'd say it would have to be Marta Nieto as the justifiably frantic mother. She makes it all seem so real...so pressing...and this clearly got reactions from many in the audience, as I heard audible gasps and even comments during the film about her. Well done...though I think the most likely winner of the Oscar will be "Detained" or, perhaps, "Skin".
Aside from a set-up shot of the beach (which was used twice), "Madre" is set entirely in an apartment in Spain. A mother and grandmother are about to leave when the mother receives a phone call from her 6 year-old son. He tells her he's at the beach...all alone....and has no idea where his daddy is! Not surprisingly, the mother is frantic...and the film mostly consists of the mother talking with her son as well as contacting the police about this. The ending is vague....and will leave most shaken.
If I were to nominate someone for the best performance in all the shorts, I'd say it would have to be Marta Nieto as the justifiably frantic mother. She makes it all seem so real...so pressing...and this clearly got reactions from many in the audience, as I heard audible gasps and even comments during the film about her. Well done...though I think the most likely winner of the Oscar will be "Detained" or, perhaps, "Skin".
Some great suspense and tension here
avenuesf5 November 2023
I found this short film to be very engaging, particularly due to the fact that it's seemingly all shot in one take, as the two actors seamlessly moved through different rooms. The decision to shoot everything in real-time and keep everything present contributed significantly to the mounting tension and suspense in the film. I do have to agree with the opinion of another reviewer here regarding the conclusion. While I wasn't looking for a tidy, pat wrap-up, the suddenness of one character just dashing out the door just seemed too abrupt to me. I'm looking forward to seeing the 2019 feature film by director Sorogoyen that was inspired by this short, if I can find it. If you have the opportunity, I highly recommend watching this short film as it expertly constructs a gradual, almost frantic, sense of suspense.
tension done brilliantly
ferguson-627 September 2018
Greetings again from the darkness. Filmmaker Rodrigo Sorogoyen begins his film with a long, slow pan shot across a deserted beach until we see the waves rhythmically rolling in and out. It appears to be a most peaceful setting, but instead it's actually the set up for one of the most intense and emotionally shattering short films ever.
Marta Nieto and her mother Blanca Apilanez are hanging around the apartment on what's a typical day for them. When Marta's answers a call, an unimaginable horror unfolds via cell phone. On the other end is her 6 year old son. He's on holiday with his father, Marta's ex. Only her son tells her, as his cell phone battery is dying, that dad left him and now he's alone on a beach ... he thinks it's France, but could be Spain.
Marta and her mother juggle cell phones as they try to track down the father, while keeping the young boy as calm as possible. It's a captivating and stunning performance by Marta Nieto, and a brilliant piece of filmmaking from Mr. Sorogoyen. It may be the most unsettling 19 minutes of movie I've seen, and if it had gone any longer, it might have become truly unbearable.
Marta Nieto and her mother Blanca Apilanez are hanging around the apartment on what's a typical day for them. When Marta's answers a call, an unimaginable horror unfolds via cell phone. On the other end is her 6 year old son. He's on holiday with his father, Marta's ex. Only her son tells her, as his cell phone battery is dying, that dad left him and now he's alone on a beach ... he thinks it's France, but could be Spain.
Marta and her mother juggle cell phones as they try to track down the father, while keeping the young boy as calm as possible. It's a captivating and stunning performance by Marta Nieto, and a brilliant piece of filmmaking from Mr. Sorogoyen. It may be the most unsettling 19 minutes of movie I've seen, and if it had gone any longer, it might have become truly unbearable.
¡Que Horror!
Screen_O_Genic30 November 2019
A woman goes through her daily routine until she receives a call from her 6 year old son. What transpires as an affectionate conversation between mother and son turns into a nightmare as the reality of the situation unfolds. A sterling story with topnotch acting especially by lead actress Marta Nieto as the hysteric mother who tries to keep her sanity together as the mounting horror engulfing her life escalates with each painful second. A tense and gripping thriller that's all too real, this is perhaps the best short ever made.
Raw, unnerving, stunning
agcuardachlycka15 November 2022
Sorogoyen is one of the best and most mature directors working out there right now and 'Madre ('Mother')' is another bulletproof reson to validate this affirmation. He does an incredible work with this powerful short that promises to stay in your memory long enough. A short film can be incredibly tricky for what may involve or should to really accomplish its target, but this one is really good. The acting is raw and real. The tension is actually shocking. It was adapted into a motion picture later, but even if that was a really good and sensitive film it never lives up to the unrestrained promises this short left. One of the best Spanish productions, period.
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