mother!
The first thing to bare in mind when you go see mother! is that this is definitely NOT your run of the mill horror movie. The fact that people are walking in expecting another conjuring is probably down to bad marketing. It is a horror film though. It's a Horror the same way that The Fountain is a science fiction film & Noah is a biblical epic. I should also add that these two pictures are probably the closest thing to mother! in director Darren Aronofsky's back catalogue. He has a lot of things to say and its all best framed here in terms of a Horror movie.
There's no serial killers, Demons or witches in mother! The horror here is people. Basically the way people attach themselves to causes, ideas or belief systems and are prepared to defend these things to the death. It's main theme seems to be about creators, primarily the artist and his relationship to his audience. The need for the Artist to engage with his audience and the conflict with the need for solitude and the effect on the loved ones in the creators life. It also looks at creation myth, dealing with the cycle of birth, creation and then death. It also deals with themes of ecological destruction and even religion with definite nods to things like original sin, Caine & Abel and even a depiction of the eucharist framed as a desecration.
Pretty heavy going then. It pretty much explains the wildly mixed reactions to the film. I've talked about marmite films before but this is probably the most extreme case of that so far. I personally love it. Aside from cure for wellness, another film I praised simply for going against the grain of the cliche ridden Hollywood machine, mother! deserves to be a bigger hit than it is. It feels genuinely fresh and original yet at the same time, the audiences out there seem to only seek familiarity so its quite depressing.
Given that the first 30-40 minutes feel more like a comedy of manners, with the horror more as a subtle, slowly creeping menace its a tough sell for people used to scares placed regularly based on some mathematical formulae. mother! is a genuine nightmare, if you've ever had one of those loss of control dreams where everything seem to spin out of control then you will probably know where i'm coming from. I'm recommending it but I won't guarantee you'll like it.
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