Mama, I’m Home was part of the 5th Pingyao Film Festival as part of the Crouching Tigers Section for 1st-3rd time filmmakers. Mama, I’m Home is the 2nd feature from director Vladimir Bitokov and pairs him with first-time screenwriter Mariya Izyumova. It tells the story of a woman whose son went and fought in Syria for the private military and when she’s told that he’s died there and they pay her for her silence, only she refuses to stay quiet or believe the stories she’s being told. And the story gets wilder as the film progresses.
The backstory you need for the film is that Tonja (played by Ksenia Rappoprt) loves her prodigal son Zhenka, but she hasn’t seen him for years. While she has been driving a bus in their hometown, along with her daughter and her daughter’s son, Zhenka most recently has been off in Syria fighting as part of a private company. While an old mansion in town is set to be renovated into a summer home (with her set to be the welcoming committee because of past service to Russia) she is told her son was killed in Syria and is given 5 million rubles (the equivalent of around 90k Canadian dollars) and asked to sign an NDA and told his gravesite is a secret. With all the secrecy, combined with the natural denial brought on by grief, it’s no wonder she questions the story. And she has something to latch onto in that the day they provided for his death doesn’t line up as her daughter received a message from him after that date. Any chance of reasoning with her that it was due to bad signals are lost. She’s a woman, nah a mother, on a mission to uncover the truth of her son.
While the daughter would like to spend the money, it’s a life-changing amount for their family, Tonja hides it away. She tries to seek assistance from her ex and Zhenia’s father, but he’s more interested in getting “his share” of the money than finding out the truth. And then “Zhenia” returns.
Much of the film deals with is whether this stranger is really her son, or just a man sent to fill the void because she wouldn’t stop making a fuss/noise about something she wasn’t supposed to even talk about and they wanted her compliance and her silence. And lots of methods were employed to try and silence her. But she would not stay silent, continuing to ask about the whereabouts of her son, even when according to everyone, he’s right next to her. They make her out to be paranoid, the man has all the correct paperwork to declare himself her son, but she refuses to believe it. Having her previously distrustful of what she’s being told combined with her son’s prolonged absences before this possible interloper turned up was a smart storytelling device. While we’d all like to believe that a mother/parent would recognize their child after an absence, you put her in a heightened experience, and it does plant a seed of doubt.
The film is a commentary on control and power, who wields it, and the methods they use to control those they consider “less than.” But in this film, Tonja defies their control and power and causes problems for them by her refusal to remain silent. In a way, this film is a bit of a fantasy because more often than not when a bigger power is up against one lone dissenter, they take more serious/permanent methods to silence the voice. What authoritarian regimes fear the most is the lone dissenter gaining followers and not being a solitary voice anymore.