"A girl was wandering through the woods looking for a way home. Then she met a witch." The narration of an old fairy tale told by my mother suggests what the story of Motherland is about. In 1992, when the Soviet Union collapsed, a mother and her son go back to their home in Lithuania. The mother is in a hurry to get her house back the Soviet government stole. Can the mother get her house back? It is unlikely that the mother′s wishes will be easily fulfilled in her son′s eyes and in the audience′s eyes. The mother′s friend, who offered to help get her the house back, did not do so in full good faith. The mother, who had lived in the U.S. and returned with her son after her divorce, is actually a girl who wandered through the woods in the fairy tale.
Motherland seems like a coming of age story of the son, but it is actually a story of the mother′s growth. The son becomes his mother′s guardian after seeing her wanderings and trials, but the mother becomes a true grown-up while experiencing divorce, betrayal, love and obsession. Motherland is a movie about a girl wandering in a forest and we hope she could find her way home. (Nam Dong-chul)