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Mother! (2017)
Art cinema and genre film are often regarded as opposite ends of the movie spectrum. One flaunts filmmaking rules, the other depends on them. When they are blended, the result can be confusing, challenging, and very refreshing. The film Mother! (2017) is an example of a filmmaker deliberately provoking audiences with a multi-genre exploration that defies labelling. Calling this a horror drama does not even come close to describing the way it ramps up from a story of domestic abuse to home invasion, demonic possession, messianic madness, and then explodes into a supernatural fantasy of biblical proportions. Be prepared for a wild ride.
Talking of plot wrongly implies that the film’s narrative is based on logical progression whereas it feels more like a never-ending nightmare. It’s held together by imagination not logic. We meet an unnamed couple in a sprawling isolated country mansion: Mother (Jennifer Lawrence) is a young home decorator, and Him (Xavier Bardem) a famous poet whose writing has, like their sex life, dried up. One evening, two people arrive unexpectedly: Man (Ed Harris) is followed later by Woman (Michelle Pfeiffer) and soon the couple are making themselves at home, much to Mother’s discomfort. More people arrive and violence erupts among the strangers. The house is cleared, the sex life and poetry resumes, and fame returns. People line up to hear Him speak and the crowds keep getting bigger. Mother becomes a captive in her own house as her tummy swells with new life while the crowds spill into every room. They revere the ground on which Him walks, hang off Him’s every word, and souvenir anything they can carry while she is in fixated panic at the disintegration of her world. The crowd’s adoration turns to greed, then carnage, while Mother gives birth in a full-scale war zone compressed into a house. The new life is shared among the hordes as the apocalypse descends. It’s totally crazy.
The originality, absurdism, and audacity of this film are breathtaking. It makes more sense if viewed as a montage of interconnected visual metaphors, loosely assembled according to taste. There are clues that help decode its possibilities. For example, being nameless renders the cast into avatars for universal stereotypes, so the film is not just about a house full of people. History is littered with belief systems and their damage to humanity, while the birth in this film is Mothers’ single unifying power that is ripped from her arms in an horrific Biblical allusion to the ‘feeding of the masses’. The score is virtually non-existent, allowing natural sounds free reign to create a mood of Gothic claustrophobia. The camerawork pulsates with handheld rhythms and variable depth of field that isolate different planes of psychological and physical reality. The frequent camera close-ups on Mother’s face or over her shoulder foregrounds her viewpoint which makes this a feminist experience of a ‘man’s world’. The casting is perfect. Jennifer Lawrence’s youthful Madonna face becomes a powerhouse of depicted terror while Xavier Bardem’s turns into a stencilled visage of divinity, a self-absorbed messiah.
Whatever else it may be, this film is also a masterpiece of political and religious satire. Completely unbounded, it can be taken as a weird horror film or read as a meditation on gendered existentialism or an absurdist parody on the saviours that arise in every society throughout history. It is also completely here and now: when Him survives the dystopian chaos that he has created, ask yourself: who does he remind you of?
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Stars: Xavier Bardem, Jennifer Lawrence, Michelle Pfeiffer, Ed Harris
I saw Bardem’s poet as an incubus/parasite and Lawrence’s character as a missed opportunity. Despite the film being told solely from Lawrence’s perspective, this is not her story. It should have been, but the ending renders her story completely irrelevant in the poet’s continuing misadventures. This segment of existence is neither the poet’s first attempt at his masterpiece nor his last, and I was left to wonder what was noteworthy about this episode that needed to be told. I have not yet found a satisfactory answer to that question.
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Mmm…I’m seeing Him as every Messiah from Jesus Christ, to Adolf Hitler, to Donald Trump who cause chaos only to rise again with a different name; I’m seeing her as perpetually crushed womanhood, a primal beating heart that gives life only to have it shredded; whoa, don’t get me started on the rest.
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He (Bardem’s “Him”) definitely thrives on chaos and adulation, and all that matters is that you love him, the effect of that love on anyone else is meaningless to him. So to compare him to other powerful narcissists (like Trump) fits, and I like the idea of that messiah being a transient presence as it casts suitably demonic motivations to Him, whose only regret at the end seems to be that he was not able to get everything he wanted and he’s ready to try again.
She (Lawrence’s “mother”) is definitely a source of life/inspiration/love that is used and discarded, so there is a natural link to women being subjugated at the hands of men. Related, I saw a mother earth comparison floating around (that I think Lawrence said was her view). That fits on the surface except that the movie then (1) ties religion to environmental destruction, which I don’t think works (I am no particular fan of religion but environmental destruction seems primarily a result of individual/corporate greed and selfishness, and I don’t think you can make that religion’s fault); and (2) doesn’t really leave a place for Him in the mother earth allegory – is he god? Does that mean earth’s power is somehow transferable/reuseable by god to create another reality, but only one at a time? And also that god is reliant on earth’s power in order to create anything new? Those concepts don’t seem to fit with Christianity which seems to be the source of the movie’s other religious references (e.g., all the plagues, the baby as Jesus, Cain and Abel). But Him must be some sort of deity, because he is shown to be some sort of immortal being in the bookends and there must be a reason for that reveal (because the movie would still work narratively if he was just a narcissistic asshole). But how does he fit with mother earth? I have no idea, and that’s the point when I discard that theory as not being what Aronofsky had in mind (and also because I don’t think Aronofsky adopted that theory until after Lawrence proposed it – whatever he initially thought it was about, it was about – he doesn’t get to change theories at this point, because he (hopefully) was trying to say something specific when he wrote it!).
There’s a lot to engage in and it would be more tempting if I knew there was a right answer. Still, it’s interesting from a discussion perspective and I would like to hear more of your thoughts if you’re interested in sharing them (liked what you have mentioned here and in your review). But that discussion potential doesn’t change that I had an immense dislike for the movie (though it does make me feel a little better for suffering through it!).
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It is a truism that the sign of truly original art is the debate it generates. If everyone interpreted Shakespeare in EXACTLY the same way, billions of words and image would not have been spent on his works. You have added some interesting vistas of interpretation. Its great to see a movie create such a frenzy of imaginative interpretation. One thing is for sure: it sticks in your head. Nice chatt’n..
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Great review, and I also enjoyed this film immensely. I agree with everything you’ve said, but when I read the line “the originality…of this film [is] breathtaking”. I wanted to cry. If only…
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Please complete that sentence…
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If only there were any originality in “Mother!”…I would have regarded this film as one of best ever made. It is put together beautifully using the parts of Aronofsky’s previous films + the Exterminating Angel and Rosemary’s Baby. Mother here is Nina from Black Swan and the setting is Requiem for a Dream (the room invasion there) + The Fountain + The Exterminating Angel + Rosemary’s Baby … and even + Carrie. Sad.
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I enjoyed reading your own excellent review but on this one point I cannot agree. One could argue that originality is a relative concept that is almost impossible to find empirically. Everything in art is derivative or borrowed from somewhere else: does that mean originality cannnot exist? Of course not. Aronofsky has been audacious in how he combines and re-mediates the borrowings. Is Swiss Army Man original? Absolutely, but its in the mix of borrowings we find its originality. The reason that Mother! is generating so much noise is that it is so original people are struggling to find labels and make sense of it. Great chatt’n with you.
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Woah! I’m super intrigued
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Worth a watch Moody Moppet. Drop back with your post-viewing thoughts.
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Will do! ^_^
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It’s a tour de force of imagination that doesn’t feel linear at all – time and reason are suspended along with the viewer’s breath most of the time, but rather than see it as nothing more than a stolen bunch of scenes from other films, I found it closer to a homage to them. I found other films, many of them, appearing in my mind, but not to the detriment of the experience that was going on. Peter Greenaway sprang to mind a few times. It’s not quite The Cook the Thief, his Wife and her Lover, but certainly of that ilk.
It’s absolutely mental. Really off the rails and fits in no box (so matched Swiss Army Man there as you said, though I have fonder feelings towards that film), wearing no clear label is a good thing as it does make one think. The religious parallel is set in place very quickly and I hope at the very least everyone picks up on that, the poster alone emanates waves of Mary, let’s face it, though the price of fame and the horror of dictators waltzed through too. The ego of man in full swing as it tramples all that is good in its path.
My only shrugs are that it laboured the points a little too much towards the end, and I found not a shred of charisma between Xavier Bardem and Jennifer Lawrence – was this on purpose to make their ‘Godly’ relationship closer to that in the good (debatable) book? Perhaps. I loved Michelle Pfeiffer! She oozed evil, and Ed Harris was as he always is, a pleasure to watch, plus it was nice to see the Gleeson brothers in there for a short while (Esme has a small keening for both Domhnall and Ed (and Michelle too for that matter)), and one criticism that can never be levelled at this movie is that it is dull.
May you all sleep well after watching it.
I decided to take it in after seeing the poster here and the number of stars you gave it – as you know I won’t read anything else before a film if I can help it, so thank you once again for taking me to pictures mister. You’re buying the popcorn next time. M’kay?
– Esme of Cloud fame waving away jaw agog
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As always Esme, you shine light onto my world with your insight and enthusiasm for the darker filmic arts. I love reading your comments, thank you.
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I am keen on the darker ones aren’t I? Hahahaha, and very glad to shine light your way dearie.
– Esme curtsying his way upon the Cloud
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