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| Mamma Gógó (Kristbjörg Kjeld) in Mamma Gógó. |
Wave bye
By John Esther
Iceland's Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film, Mamma Gógó is Fridrik Thór Fridriksson's (Children of Nature; Niceland) semi-autobiographical tale about The Director (an unimpressive Hilmir Snaer Gunason) who tries to balance his ever increasing debt over Children of Nature, a film he has just released, and his mother, Mamma Gógó (Kristbjörg Kjeld), who is rapidly losing her mind to Alzheimer's.
For the most part, Mamma Gógó is mildly engaging for its 88-minute running time. Some of the inside jokes are funny and the tragedy of the titular character should cause concern for anyone who knows somebody facing old age – parent or otherwise. Aging is not without its consequences. (At least The Director does not have to worry about his mother's health care bills.)
Unfortunately, in order to, somewhat pretentiously, tie in The Director's precarious plight as some sort of a direct link with Icelandic film history, Fridriksson uses scenes of Kjeld as Girl Gógó from her 1962 feature film debut, 79 AF Stoddini. While that may have worked if this film had been rewritten without box office sales and Oscar nominations in mind (I am speculating on Fridriksson's motivations), what we get with Mamma Gógó as a result is a film with one of the most inane, embarrassing conclusions in recent international film history. How gross? Suffice it to say, Mamma Gógó winds up making True Grit look like Biutiful.
