mother! (Darren Aronofsky, 2017)

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All the Best People
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Re: mother! (Darren Aronofsky, 2017)

#151 Post by All the Best People » Sun Dec 24, 2017 12:22 am

A sincere question: is there anyone who actually likes this movie for its allegorical content, rather than despite of it or regardless of it?

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swo17
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Re: mother! (Darren Aronofsky, 2017)

#152 Post by swo17 » Sun Dec 24, 2017 12:50 am

Yes?

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DarkImbecile
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Re: mother! (Darren Aronofsky, 2017)

#153 Post by DarkImbecile » Sun Dec 24, 2017 1:29 am

Yes.

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domino harvey
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Re: mother! (Darren Aronofsky, 2017)

#154 Post by domino harvey » Sun Dec 24, 2017 1:46 am

I believe it's stylized yes!

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All the Best People
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Re: mother! (Darren Aronofsky, 2017)

#155 Post by All the Best People » Sun Dec 24, 2017 4:27 am

I guess I should have included in the question the follow-up of (to style it appropriately) why?!

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Lost Highway
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Re: mother! (Darren Aronofsky, 2017)

#156 Post by Lost Highway » Sun Dec 24, 2017 4:28 am

All the Best People wrote:A sincere question: is there anyone who actually likes this movie for its allegorical content, rather than despite of it or regardless of it?
Apart from that I think that the film’s content is inseparable from its form, what it has to say about a (male) god who scorches the earth rather than to give up the adulation he feels he is due, is timely in several ways.

On a another note, I haven’t seen much praise for Javier Bardem, but his performance is what really makes the film work for me. The way he cloaks his betrayal of mother by appearing caring and loving, is ultimately the scariest thing in the film.

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domino harvey
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Re: mother! (Darren Aronofsky, 2017)

#157 Post by domino harvey » Sun Dec 24, 2017 9:11 am

He's one note but convincing in his empty confidence and reassurances. Speaking of non-Lawrence perfs, I loved that Aronofsky cast Stephen McHattie as one of the main zealots, as he's a massively underrated actor of great intensity and discomfort, and as such a perfect fit here!

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Shrew
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Re: mother! (Darren Aronofsky, 2017)

#158 Post by Shrew » Sun Dec 24, 2017 1:55 pm

Allegory, in its classic sense, isn't supposed to be hidden meaning so much as a clear overlying symbol or narrative. This film's use of allegory is more similar to that than to the modern usage of ambiguous (and often political) double meaning that is often obscure and can be read in many different ways. Thus, all the talk about how the allegory is too obvious doesn't strike me as a legitimate complaint.

Also, what interests me about Mother's use of allegory is how it changes the story/interactions we see on screen. In other words, the goal is not to recognize the allegory but to enjoy how the allegory enriches and shades aspects of what is on screen.

Also this film beats Mel Gibson for recapturing the horror of the Passion of the Christ.

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Re: mother! (Darren Aronofsky, 2017)

#159 Post by Magic Hate Ball » Tue Jan 02, 2018 11:24 am

domino harvey wrote:He's one note but convincing in his empty confidence and reassurances. Speaking of non-Lawrence perfs, I loved that Aronofsky cast Stephen McHattie as one of the main zealots, as he's a massively underrated actor of great intensity and discomfort, and as such a perfect fit here!
Kristen Wiig was the standout side role for me, the film uses her scary, nervous energy so well and her unexpected appearance is extremely in-line with the film's dream tone.

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barryconvex
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Re: mother! (Darren Aronofsky, 2017)

#160 Post by barryconvex » Sat Jan 06, 2018 9:59 am

I wish it didn't take prestige directors having to first make x amount of money for their financiers before being allowed to direct something as wildly not mainstream as mother!... As such though, this is as great a realization of an uncompromising artistic vision by a semi-mainstream american director as i can think of. Not just recent recollection either; considering the subject matter and the degree of difficulty in achieving it this sort of airtight conception and execution just doesn't come around very often. Fantastic discussion here and i wanted to add that as i was watching none of the bible allegory hit me until afterwards and even then it was second to my reaction that mother! was closer in spirit to Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree than anything in the old testament. The excessively high cost and diminished returns of playing the muse in a masochistic relationship being the most obvious common ground...


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Re: mother! (Darren Aronofsky, 2017)

#162 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun Aug 23, 2020 11:50 pm

This was one of those films where I first left the theatre unsure if I loved or hated it, and after some time and another watch I veered heavily toward the adoration (this thread definitely helped me appreciate some elements back in my lurking days). After a few more rounds, it's become one of the more impressive cinematic experiences dictating the powerlessness to contest with selfishness (in many ways: against another's, society's, and within ourselves) I've ever seen. Aside from its swallowing atmospheric anxiety and clear allegorical Biblical/environmental nature, there's an even broader thematic interest that I latch onto in a very personal way.
SpoilerShow
The incompatibility of people with one another and with their immediate social context, and the dissatisfaction with what one has in presence of new variables or ideas, is planted as a warning sign of nonverbal ignorance at the start and spreads like an infection. One could argue that a person who is always looking for 'more' or who takes the 'grass is always greener' mindset, impossible to be present in the current moment, attracts and the invites the kind of chaos that Bardem does in the form of disruptive visitors, attempting to fill the egoist's hole that can never actually be satisfied.

The unsettling nature of this film on revisits isn't just resigned to the impotence of Lawrence's agency or the aesthetic nausea, but the realization that Bardem will succumb to his own flaws and repeat himself over and over again, igniting destruction and pain on innocent bystanders for eternity. Psychologically speaking from my own experience and those I've known, the quest for validation that has no bottom when coupled with a lack of self-awareness, begets a cyclical pattern of harmful behavior, and Bardem's lack of engagement with responsibility will only perpetuate the death of all opportunities for love and gratitude. The irony is that the patience Bardem has to continue this process matches Lawrence's to bask in banality and stare at a wall to find the right coat of paint, but his is a need for the rush, for change, frenzied beguilement.

Of course this is an obvious intent to highlight the hunt for 'more' and being dissatisfied with mindful focus on what is in front of a person, but beyond environmental concerns and western selfishness I think about rhythms of addiction, and dissonance of spark in relationship dynamics on a micro scale. In using an intimate, jarring setting to detail the intensity of what we are doing on a larger magnitude, the film succeeds, but I think it also mirrors as a demonstration of the actual suffering and distress we experience as hostages from another's ego and from our own self-involvement.

We cannot break from our empathy with Lawrence because she is our surrogate, but most of us have been Bardem from time to time and so the perspective-shift is a new level of discomfort. The catharsis is only reached in an embrace of nihilism, as it sinks in that we've just seen one of the infinite chapters of a cruel and traumatic Sisyphean worldview. It really doesn't get more horrific than this in both its existential implications and the claustrophobic suffocation of physical, psychological, and moral assaults on our senses.

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