At the age of three, Ozren only has to watch his mother while she's sleeping to know that she's the most beautiful woman in the world. A queen. At the age of nine, he doesn't understand why people swear at him on the street, calling him a whore's son, a sonofabitch: his mother works as a waitress and that's the only reason she's hardly ever at home in the evening. At the age of 16 Ozren knows. He's learned a lot: about money from his mother; about God from his Auntie Ljiljana; about the world
from his Uncle Ante; about whores from Pepi. Now, he's determined to clear up the mystery surrounding his mother.
Tale of mother worship nicely sets its protags within multiple contexts as outsiders, but is kept from taking off by poor motivations and a nagging naivete in the over-innocent title character.
The slicing camerawork of Fassbinder/Haneke collaborator Jurgen Jurges underscores the bitter message: We don't always know what we want from our parents, only what we're not getting.
Despite a contrived creakiness in the plot, a climax all too broadly hinted at in the opening scene and the occasional dive into blowzy-hooker cliché, some characters are nicely observed.
Being in the company of Usein's and Lisnic's slow-minded, one-note character for most of the movie, we're strained to develop the sympathy level that would make for a touching or perceptive study.
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