Revision as of 10:37, 22 August 2018

mother!

Initially titled Day 6, a much better title in my opinion, mother! (no capital letter and an exclamation point) is a movie masterpiece by Darren Aronofsky, depicting the main theme of all story-telling: man meeting God.

The interpretation is remarkable because it succeeds in approaching the story from a different perspective where God is a selfish and guilty being. This makes it already very interesting because such a simple twist on the canonical narrative invalidates the many critics of the scriptures being nonsensical and paradoxical: why God would allow that, why would he proceed in this way, etc.? Well, maybe God is just such an impotent and struggling artist infatuated by his creation, however faulty and shoddy it is, and blinded by the adoration it elicits, however vulgar and misdirected. The real beauty, the real masterpiece would then be Nature itself, not man who abuses it. But that's what God wants: something to his image, to show off, to feel adored, ignoring and neglecting mother and her exquisite setting which gives the real magnitude to his work (God comments at some point regarding the destruction inside the house that these are just things, this can be replaced).

This different perspective is possible through the character that is indeed typically ignored in most allegorical or spiritual considerations: mother Earth. There was a place left for her in antique mythology, in the form of Gaia, but she has been completely set aside in the Judeo-Christian narrative, which is also something well captured by the movie, where she is repeatedly perceived as an accessory, a servitor, if not an intruder, and in general a bare natural resource rather than a respectable being. The movie restores the importance of this central character by either focusing the camera on her, or on the opposite, keeping the back of the head in the front plane, as an observer of the drama that unravels on her scenery. This also allows the central theme of showing God and man's relationship from neither one side or the other, allowing both parties to be revealed in their limitations, faults and responsibilities (or lack thereof).

The setting is mainly Genesis although the movie covers all of history, to end up with Apocalypsis, before starting over. One recognizes some of the main characters and event of the Bible: Adam and Eve, Adam's rib, Cain and Abel, the spilled blood, the great flood (with the sink), the birth and sacrification of Christ, religion, human barbarism, profanation and crimes, spillage and raping of Earth's resources. Rather than the original sin, the anchor point is Abel's murder by Cain, with the indelible mark it made in the form of an ugly blood stain on the floor which echoes Genesis 4:11

Now you are cursed and banished from the ground, which has swallowed your brother's blood.

There are also interesting slight departures: the Apple is replaced by the fragile diamond piece on its pedestal, which originates from the previous mother and is the source of God's generation of the Universe, so something outside of his control, somehow, a sort of Natural force that he's using to create. This gives an interesting perspective to this central point of the tree of knowledge. Also, this is not Adam and Eve who are naked but mother, thinly wrapped in a robe that hardly conceals her nudity. The shame of this innocence comes from Eve who rebukes mother as indecent at the funeral. The sacrifice of Christ is of the baby, rather than the 33-year-old man, he is not crucified but killed in almost the same pose by his neck snapping while he is carried away by a rageful mob inflicting him the passion. Communion is depicted as an interesting act of mutilation and cannibalism. The absurd, morbid, revulsing religious celebrations that follow in its wake are another well-rendered insights from the movie.

The genre is classified as horror, and indeed several scenes are difficult to see. The killing of the baby makes a very strong impression which leaves one's nerves shattered. The violence slowly growing out of proportion, from the otherwise polite, learned and civilized first encounter, slowly builds a sensation of revolt and rage in the viewer. The multi-faceted flaws of mankind's characters are well captured: from the insidious primordial female nagging to the brutal first males already fighting each other, to then quickly expand to portray the arrogance, the indifference, the flattery, the provocations, the deference, the looting, the idolatry, the empathy, the crimes, the butchering of others, and about every humane trait you can imagine. A favorite part is, of course, the utterance of the most dramatic line ever:

I am I

Both the directing and actors are perfect.

Actress Jennifer Lawrence hurt herself impersonating the character

Nothing is ever enough. I couldn't create if it was. And I have to. That's what I do. That's... what I am. Now I must try it all again.

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! (2017) in 5 days.