Product Details

• Actors: Brasse Brannstrom, Esko Salminen, Leif Andree, Marie Goranzon, Aino-Maija Tikkanen
• Directors: Klaus Haro
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: Swedish
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Film Movement
• DVD Release Date: August 7, 2007
• Run Time: 111 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000P0J00Q
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #87,750 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Review

The contrast between Finland's frigid birch forests and the open expanse of the Swedish coast, captured in Jarkko T. Laine's striking camerawork, is a key element of the film's quiet power, but composer Tuomas Kantelinen tugs too hard at heartstrings. --Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter

Product Description

During World War II, more than 70,000 Finnish children were evacuated to neutral Sweden to avoid the conflict. Mother of Mine, the latest from the award-winning Klaus Haro (Elina), tackles that painful patch of history in a tale of 9-year-old Eero, a child who increasingly feels abandoned by his biological Finnish mother and yet not attached to his Swedish surrogate mom. When he is returned to Finland, his confusion intensifies.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing Film!!!, November 21, 2007

By 

D. Lynch (Philadelphia, Pa USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mother of Mine (DVD)

This film has always haunted me. I saw it two years ago on a long flight and was completely struck by it's quality...the photography is completely breathtaking, the writing and storyline is top-notch, and the acting and directing is superb. Being adopted I think this film has an added bittersweetness for me yet it's accessable to anyone because of its complete loyalty to the characters. This film is a true delight, and heartbreak, from beginning to end. It plays like a dream within a dream.
The woman who plays the adopted mother steals the show as you see her emotional range from one end of the spectrum to the complete other end. I felt every single thing she was going through. This is film making at its most beautiful. Bravo!!!!!

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Moving, Beautiful film!, April 9, 2007

By 

K. Jeannette (Minneapolis, MN USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mother of Mine (DVD)

After the outbreak of war between Finland and Russia, during World War II, the nine-year old boy, Eero, is sent from Finland to live with a family in neutral Sweden. (The film tells us that over 70,000 Finnish children were sent to Sweden for refuge.) Eero's indomitable spirit shines through as he adjusts to his new surroundings, dealing with the language difference and new relationships with his foster parents and the other schoolchildren. What will happen when he is supposed to return to Finland? This film is visually pleasing, with gorgeous vistas of the Swedish coastland, and very moving in its simple human story. I loved it and very highly recommend it!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Has Enough Time Passed? ...., September 28, 2010

By 

Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mother of Mine (DVD)

... for us to watch this poignant film about a child displaced by war, without remembering the issues of that war, or recalling our own or our families' roles in that war? "Mother of Mine" is set in Finland and southern Sweden in the last years of World War II, but war per se is only a backdrop, a cause without a Cause, to the tragedy of the boy Eero, whose father has been killed in battle and whose mother sends him away for his own safety. Eero is twelve years old, speaks only Finnish, but he is taken to live on a farm in Skåne, a rural province of Sweden, by an agency that transported at least 70,000 Finnish children as refugees to such safety. The Swedish family that accepts Eero has recently been traumatized by the death of their own child, and the Mother find's Eero's arrival horribly painful. Meanwhile, Eero's natural mother has found another "man" to love; she will eventually need to choose between the new man and the son whom she's given away.

The film narrative is structured as a 'flashback' in the mind of Eero as a 70-year-old man, summoned to the funeral in Sweden of his adoptive mother. Returning from Sweden, Eero visits his birth mother in a nursing home, despite the truth that he has never reconciled himself to her 'abandonment' of him. In a lovely reversal of the usual cinematography, the story of Eero's boyhood is filmed in color, while Eero's visitations after most of a lifetime are filmed in black-and-white.

The War, nevertheless, was a presence in my mind while watching this film, possibly because I spent some of my own childhood in Sweden, possibly because I'm just old enough to remember the post-war years clearly. Finland was aligned with Germany in that War; Eero's father fought against the "Allies", specifically against Russia, and Eero's mother worked for the German Occupation Forces. Her new lover was a German soldier. Sweden was purportedly a 'neutral' country, but Swedes of a certain age will forever feel a certain discomfort about that neutrality, which allowed the Germans to transit and attack Norway. At the same time, large numbers of Norwegian Jews fled to Sweden for asylum, and it's true that throngs of Finnish children were fostered during and after the War. It's also true that children of many nations were separated from the families and sheltered in foreign lands. The greatest WW II novel of all, in my opinion -- Austerlitz, by WG Sebald -- tells the story of a Jewish German boy rescued to exile in England.

Most viewers, I'm sure, will accept this film on its own a-polotical, a-historical terms. It's a potently sentimental story, a heart-render with an unexpectedly 'gentle' ending. The acting is incredible. Why is it that unknown, never-seen-before-or-again actors are so much more skillful in their portrayals on the screen than all the touted, overpaid, Oscar-acclaimed stars? Eh? Oh well ... Great photography, crisp editing, excellent dialogue (in Finnish and Swedish, but well subtitled). A fine movie for those who appreciate sentiment.