GOODNIGHT, MOMMY – An Austrian chat show host is recovering from an operation in an isolated villa. Her two sons start to question their mother's identity, then, after their psychosis comes to the boil, go the intimidation/ torture route with her. 'Goodnight Mommy' is a poised and sombre affair that rolls out its slightly hackneyed tale with arty aplomb, a plastic surgery horror which moves a little like Haneke (lazy comparison, but true in some ways). Although at its heart it's a rather subdued film, after a certain point it does give way to more heavy handed tactics that would sit OK in a more 'B' type production, but here feel a little clunky – dream sequences with insects bursting from wounds, an ending that tips towards 'torture-porn', and a slightly lame twist that I could see coming from nearly the beginning. Still, it's all really well put together, the chilly cinematography effortlessly conjuring a tense atmosphere of foreboding at every turn. There's also a sense of social subtext coming through, but maybe I'm over-reading. Well worth seeing, and although I didn't go crazy over it unlike some, I want to watch it again – there's a lot that's unsaid in scenes which are pregnant with meaning, and there's a sense that the aforementioned twist doesn't really explain away this film's mysteries. Weird that it doesn't yet have a UK DVD release, but the curious can check it out through Amazon Prime.
MOTHER'S DAY – I never liked this film, and would mostly turn it off halfway through whenever I tried it in the past. Perhaps it was the Troma association. However. I decided to give it another go the other day and, maybe it was down to the wonders of blu-ray technology who knows, but I thought it was great. Something just clicked. I think I've just seen too many shit films, to the point now where I can finally recognise when something is actually well made and just go with it. Anyway, 'Mothers Day' is a strange one for sure, and it's difficult to fully fathom the signals it's sending out. Is it misogynist? Feminist? Misogynist piss-take? Feminist piss-take? How do we make sense of a movie that ends with a young woman suffocating an old woman with an inflatable plastic boob pillow case? The stuff of endless debate, but there's no denying that 'Mother's Day' is quite brutal in places. It's the little vignettes that make it – the whole mythology about Queenie and the scene with the severed ear, the weird interplay between the troglodyte bothers, that 'freeze frame' classic at the end. Obviously, despite the black comedy (thankfully never too broad), we get that glowering early eighties menace in the air. Classic of the genre? Who knows, but it hits pretty hard and certainly has its fans.
MULHOLLAND DRIVE – Who gets closer to the essence of dream than David Lynch? That goes for any medium, not just film. 'Mulholland Drive', a waking dream of a film if ever there was one, is essential Lynch, and surely stands alongside 'Blue Velvet' and 'Lost Highway' as the pinnacle of his art, not to mention eighties / nineties American cinema full stop. Well, we could argue all night about that one I guess. I won't dwell too long on 'Mulholland Drive' as for one thing you probably all know it pretty well, and for another it's the kind of film you can either write a book on or say nothing at all... 'silencio' indeed! Again, it's the moments and the individual scenes that make the most impact, before floating away into the night... the creepy dude behind the diner... the scene in the club... the baffling ending with those two tiny pensioners. Somehow, it feels like it must all make sense on some level. Genius.
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