Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s Madre Review

The significance of being a mother is practically endless. A mother is a selfless, protective and loving human: to those women who are mothers, it might be the hardest yet the most rewarding job of all. Motherhood also comes with fear and anxiety when it comes to a child’s safety, and one can only pray that the worst nightmare of losing a child to the unknown never occurs. However, that horrifying ordeal comes true in Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s Madre (Mother), an absorbing and tense seventeen-minute short film.

Spain. An ordinary day. Marta (Marta Nieto) and her mother (Blanca Apilánez) are enjoying each other’s company until Marta receives an alarming phone call from her young son Ivan (Álvaro Balas), who is spending time with his father in France. Ivan has been left unattended on a beach while his father disappears. With a low battery on the boy’s phone, Marta tries to guide the son to a safe place. The worst nightmare comes true, Ivan is lost, alone, in the middle of nowhere and now followed by a strange man, the only thing mother can do is shout: “Run!”

Rodrigo Sorogoyen takes the audience on a rollercoaster ride within 5 minutes, leaving no space for a single breath. The tension builds up even more before reaching the final scene. The narrative is cleverly supported by the gripping music and, undoubtedly, by Marta Nieto in the role of the mother. The actress created a real and coherent character for the mother and she transfixes the audience by showing the feelings of uncertainty, pain, and anxiety. While the viewer doesn’t see the boy on the big screen, the voice of Álvaro Balas adds to the pressure of the situation he is in.

Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s Madre portrays a shattering experience of losing a child and the situation when you feel there is nothing you can do to help, but pray, that everything will be okay. With actors and settings well framed, this 17-minute film makes for a superb short, and with the perturbing subject matter, the filmmaker, teamed up with the crew and Marta Nieto to create an even more emotionally intensive feature based on Madre‘s narrative.

Madre is a truly profound piece of work from Sorogoyen and having the short made into a feature will probably grab the audience’s attention even more. The film is set for the release late in 2019.

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