The Eyes of My Mother - 2016, d. Nicolas Pesce - netflix
Mom and Dad - 2017, d. Brian Taylor - netflix
There's virtually no connective thread here. mother! is all about metaphor and the "maternal horror" is equally metaphorical. In The Eyes of My Mother, the "maternal horror" is parental influence (both the impact of the mother and the absence of her). In Mom and Dad the horror is the fact that parents are all going psycho trying to kill their kids. So yeah, can't really thread these together in any form of critical narrative, so I won't try.
I should also note I had 2013's Mama (starring Jessica Chastain and Jamie Lannister) queued up in netflix for this grouping, but I ran out of time to watch it.
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Wow. This film is ...well, it's a slog. Darren Aronofsky is an incredible filmmaker who makes, at the very least, interesting films. This one is definitely interesting, in concept at least. In actually watching, it's pretty brutal.
If you don't know about mother!, what it's conceit is, what metaphors it's playing with, then it's probably more enticing, but if you do know what its conceit is, the metaphors at play, then it's quite a tedious slog, as you're constantly unpacking the metaphors. If you know that Javier Bardem's character is supposed to represent God, and Jennifer Lawrence's character is Mother Nature, and their house, the only setting in the film is the Earth, then you literally cannot invest in the story. These are not characters, they're metaphors, and the events happening don't mean anything to them really, because they are also metaphors.
God revels in his love for humanity and humanity's love for him, at the expense of nature. The Testaments teach about respect and forgiveness for fellow man, but don't teach respect for the Earth and nature. So we, as humanity abuse mother nature, we disregard and disrespect her. We destroy what she gives us, we poison her and ourselves, we overstay our welcome, we battle each other in front of her, and scar her land, leaving irreparable wounds. We overpopulate and ravage this small land recklessly, while holding belief in a higher being as reason to do so, our God-given land to do with as we please.
It's pretty obvious within the first 20 minutes how this will shake out (well, all of it isn't obvious, particularly what happens in the final 10 minutes) and the intention is clear from the get-go. Exploring religious and ecological themes in tandem is honestly not something that happens often enough. What is religion's responsibility to the Earth? Yet, there's a ham-fisted nature to the way Aronofsky explores the ideas here. It's a kind of cudgel that just beats it into you, and is exhausting in its abuse. I had to watch the film in fits and starts because I would get so fatigued after watching 20 minutes (sometimes less).Everything in mother! is very deliberate, but that's part of what makes it so challenging to watch. The almost constant up-close, center-frame focus on Lawrence (and occasionally Bardem) is challenging. I remember my art teacher in high school explaining that placing a figure at center frame is off-putting, too perfect, commands too much of your attention. Placing them a little askew, to one side or the other, lets your eye wander. At center frame you feel held captive by the image. You would think being held captive by J-Law wouldn't be that bad a thing, but there's a otherworldliness to her, a natural uncanny valley that makes her difficult to look at for long stretches (and the same can be said for Bardem, which makes casting seem very deliberate).
It's a film I definitely cannot recommend, as I can't even think of anyone who would enjoy this, and yet, I'm still glad I saw it. It does leave more than a little lingering something to think about.
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The Eyes of My Mother (a name I kept getting confused with the not-so-classic John Carpenter-written The Eyes of Laura Mars) is an examination of how an isolated and traumatized child grows into a confused and murderous adult. It's a twisted concept piece, shot in black and white, with long (and I mean loooooong) takes establishing mood and isolation.
I'm going to tell you pretty much the whole movie in one paragraph...I'm leaving out a few nuances but otherwise, this is the film:
Francisca mother was a surgeon in Portugal, and is taught about biology (as her mother butchers the cows from the farmland) at a very young age. Still a child, she witnesses her mother murdered by a cheerful stranger, and her father, returning home, bludgeons the grinning psychopath and chains him up in the barn. Francisca converses with the killer, to find out why he did it... "Because it feels amazing" he tells her. To silence their captive's late-night wailing Francisca removes the man's vocal chords and eyes (a particularly fascinating piece of anatomy to her mother). Calling him her best friend, she feeds and grooms him like a pet, and years later, now a grown woman, she seeks solace in him after her father dies. Lonely, she picks up a woman at a bar and confidently tells her about her disturbing history and thoughts, and murders the woman. Later, she confesses to him that he was right, and thinking that she's found kinship, she unchains him, feeds him, bathes him and lays in bed with him. But tries clumsily to flee her, so she kills him too. Her loneliness overbearing she kidnaps a baby and its mother, treating the mother like her former hostage (eyes and vocal cords removed), and raises the boy as her own. Years later, the boy discovers the stranger in the barn, and sets her free, and it's only a matter of time before the police arrive.
It's not a particularly crafty film, but it's very assured in its creation. The director knows exactly what kind of tone he wants from the story and ultimately is trying to find understanding in why Francisca is the way she is. She's not a malevolent being, not a violent psychopath, just an isolated woman who was never taught properly how the world works or how to have a proper relationship. Her father is such a numb, inanimate object, that her relationship isn't much different with him even after he's dead (yep, she still watches TV, dines, and sleeps next to his corpse). Her relationship with her captives are pretty much the same, she takes care of them. We don't see much of her relationship with her stolen son, but it's clear she has emotions, the capability of love and caring, and her son seems well-adjusted in a way she isn't. Also, I suppose the film intones that she treats her victims like her mother treats cattle...as food, since there are plenty of shots of her packaging up the butchered meat and putting it in the refrigerator. She's a cannibal but doesn't see humans as any different than animals grown for food.
One of the most interesting aspects of this, as a horror film, is that it cuts over the violence. All of Francisca's misdeeds happen off screen. We see the lead into them, and the clean-up after them, but not the actual acts, save one. It's actually far creepier that way, leading the imagination to picture horrors and gruesomeness probably far in excess of what they would have managed to show on screen. There is real precision here, but it's essentially an hour-long tv-show type production stretched out to feature length.
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While Talyor was one half of the team that put out the Crank movies, Gamer and Ghost Rider 2, without Mark Neveldine as creative partner, Mom and Dad seems downright reserved comparatively. In fact, unlike any of those previous movies, it actually feels like Taylor has something to say here, in this case about parenthood and middle age.
While the a teen (Anne Winters) and a precocious 8-year-old (Zackary Arthur) are the ostensible heroes of this film, the focus is more on the sure-to-go-crazy parents played by Nic Cage and Selma Blair. Cage is in full-on Cage mode here, and it's hard to really tell if he's in tune with the character and the story or if he's just doing that Nic Cage thing that he always seems to do now. Blair's character gets a bit of a softer touch, as she's fighting with her teen constantly and can't seem to figure out how not to be at odds with her. Cage meanwhile is in full-on mid-life crisis. He can't believe the man he's become and fantasizes waaaay too much about the carefree asshole pussy magnate he used to be. Taylor gives Cage a rather sad montage of assembling and obsessing over a pool table, only to follow it up with another quick-cut Cage-rage as he destroys it with a sledgehammer when Blair questions it. Taylor's clearly working through some things.
For the first half of the movie, the adults-attacking-of-kids percolates in the background, mentions on the radio, on tv, sirens and other small things in the distance that just are askew. When things do happen, they're more comedic than horrifying, and in general Taylor guides this more as a romp than a scare-fest. The focus here is on establishing the family dynamic, the relationships between the parents and children and between the parents themselves. I don't buy Cage and Blair as a happy couple, but that's mainly because we're not supposed to. They're not happy with their lives and not terribly happy with each other. That doesn't come through right away because they spend so much time apart. But once they become kill-kid happy, they're brought together in a way that unifies them once again. Unfortunately it's because they're wanting to kill their kids.
It's a bit gross at times, but the violence here is mostly slapstick. It's pratfalls and clumsiness, and it's genuinely quite fun... mostly. The pacing is erratic as hell though. As noted, it's not anywhere near as ADD as the Crank films but Taylor still seems to have difficulty resting, and sitting with a character or moment, or really letting the emotion sink in. He's striving to get emotional performances (Blair is really great), but he's just too quick to pull away or make a cut to a different angle, distracting from a performance or building drama. In fact the rhythms are way off everywhere in this film. I think the script is tremendous fun and a lot of the physical comedy is well executed, but Taylor doesn't seem to be aware of how to really mess with the genres he's playing in. The way things are revealed, not just, say, gore, but attackers jumping out from places or character backgrounds or sudden rescuers...there's no surprise, shock or jumps in them. He telegraphs things too much for any real surprises, and even the grossest moment, where a character gets a coathanger through his cheek, seems non-committal on Taylor's part. He doesn't sit with the characters horrified reactions, or even play into how uneasy a concept it is. He doesn't know how to milk a moment, for dramatic or comedic or horrifying tension.
I really wish this came from a more assured director. It's still quite enjoyable as is, but it would be a downright classic in the hands of someone who really knew what they wanted out of each scene and create a unifying sensibility for the film. Also, it's totally like the counter-punch to Cooties (which David reviewed here and I reviewed here).
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