Mother!

Dir: Darren Aronofsky

2017

*****

2017’s Mother! is a tricky film to review. On one hand I have to congratulate director Darren Aronofsky for achieving exactly what he sets out to, but when the aim is to antagonize, aggravate and get under the skin of the viewer, it’s a very hard film to celebrate. The first hour or so is painful viewing, the story lifts ever so slightly once you realise what is in fact going on and what it all means, but before then it is pure guesswork with very few clues. For the first hour or so I actually thought it was a David Cronenberg-inspired film about anxiety that also alluded to abandonment, anthropophobia and mental health issues in general. The title also made me wonder whether it was a film about the anxieties directly linked to motherhood, from the twinkle in the eye to the birth itself. It is regarded as a psychological horror but I think that is a misleading description, it’s actually about destruction. Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem play nameless characters who live in a huge house together, she a homemaker and he a poet. Their idyllic life is thrown into chaos when a mysterious doctor (Ed Harris) comes to stay with them. Soon, his wife (Michelle Pfeiffer) joins him and they make themselves at home, much to the annoyance of Jennifer Lawrence’s she. It was when their two sons (brothers Domhnall and Brian Gleeson)   arrived to the house fighting that the penny dropped; they were Cain and Able, their parents were Adam and Eve, making Jennifer Lawrence mother nature and Javier Bardem God. More and more people flock to the house to pay their respects and then to visit the poet, whom they have all become obsessed over. Bardem’s God/poet greets people with open arms – he needs their love in order to live. However, mankind is cruel to mother nature and the last half an hour of the film is a dizzying nightmare of pain and brutality, first directed at the beautiful house she has lovingly built, and then at her physically. The film takes an even darker tone when the mother gives birth (Jesus) and God gives the child to the people, who eventually tear it to pieces. Now, whether or not you believe in God is one thing, we can all agree that at the very least he exists in concept, and Aronofsky’s tale is bang on the money when it alludes to the fact that without love and belief, God is as good as dead. Mother nature on the other hand is real, it’s another word of the environment, Earth really for us humans. We have indeed kicked mother nature in the personals, we pillage the landscape for our own use and have caused more damage in the very short time we have existed on it, than the millions of years before we turned up. We are a cancer to this planet, a tough thing to admit, but undeniable all the same. Aronofsky’s film is a direct allegory of this and is suitably horrible to witness. It really isn’t a subject where you could treat lightly, especially if you want to tell it exactly how it is. The last half hour of the film is devastating and horrific to watch, the 90 minutes beforehand are confusing, irritating and void of pleasure. This is why so many people slated it on its release, but as much as I didn’t enjoy watching it, I have to give credit to Aronofsky for delivering an intelligent and thought-provoking story. It’s the oldest story in the book (literally, it’s basically Genesis) and there is really nothing new about it. Using a house as an allegory for the garden of Eden isn’t that much of a stretch of the imagination either, and yet the film keeps you guessing. It’s a bizarre feeling, when you know you dislike watching something at the same time as knowing that each and every scene is brilliantly realised and executed. It isn’t supposed to be ‘entertaining’ in the classic sense, every part of the film serves a purpose and that purpose is to strike the audience and get as far under their skin as possible. It’s a job well done. Aronofsky has been hugely misunderstood with this film but then all the great directors/film are. He released the following statement as a form of explanation: "It is a mad time to be alive. As the world population nears 8 billion we face issues too serious to fathom: ecosystems collapse as we witness extinction at an unprecedented rate; migrant crises disrupt governments; a seemingly schizophrenic US helps broker a landmark climate treaty and months later withdraws; ancient tribal disputes and beliefs continue to drive war and division; the largest iceberg ever recorded breaks off an Antarctic ice shelf and drifts out to sea. At the same time we face issues too ridiculous to comprehend: in South America, tourists twice kill rare baby dolphins that washed ashore, suffocating them in a frenzy of selfies; politics resembles sporting events; people still starve to death while others can order any meat they desire. As a species our footprint is perilously unsustainable yet we live in a state of denial about the outlook for our planet and our place on it. From this primordial soup of angst and helplessness, I woke up one morning and this movie poured out of me like a fever dream. All of my previous films gestated with me for many years but I wrote the first draft of Mother! in five days. Within a year we were rolling cameras. And now two years later, it is an honor to return to the Lido for the world premiere. I imagine people may ask why the film has such a dark vision. Hubert Selby Jr, the author of Requiem for a Dream, taught me that through staring into the darkest parts of ourselves is where we find the light. "Mother!" begins as a chamber story about a marriage. At the center is a woman who is asked to give and give and give until she can give nothing more. Eventually, the chamber story can't contain the pressure boiling inside. It becomes something else which is hard to explain or describe. I can't fully pinpoint where this film all came from. Some came from the headlines we face every second of every day, some came from the endless buzzing of notifications on our smartphones, some came from living through the blackout of Hurricane Sandy in downtown Manhattan, some came from my heart, some from my gut. Collectively it's a recipe I won't ever be able to reproduce, but I do know this serving is best drunk as a single dose in a shot glass. Knock it back. Salute!" Aronofsky has shown that he is an absolute master of his craft, Mother! is an unpleasant masterpiece, brilliantly accomplished and one that I will enjoy never seeing ever again. It's hated now but mark my words, Mother! will be regarded as an essential classic in years to come.