Xixax Film Forum

Film Discussion => The Vault => Topic started by: Shughes on August 09, 2017, 07:56:15 AM

Title: mother!
Post by: Shughes on August 09, 2017, 07:56:15 AM
SPOILERY TRAILER



Might be posting this in the wrong place but just wondering why there seems to be little interest in this film on here? Unless I've missed it elsewhere...
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: jenkins on August 09, 2017, 02:51:44 PM
you totally became part of the community and generated interest yourself, it was beautiful
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: polkablues on August 09, 2017, 06:39:20 PM
I'm excited for Aronofsky's continued evolution into a Roman Polanski whose movies I don't have to feel guilty about supporting. This looks like a great companion piece to Black Swan in a lot of ways, and I'm happy that Jennifer Lawrence is getting pushed out of the David O. Russell groove she seemed to have settled into.
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: ©brad on August 09, 2017, 06:57:51 PM
That trailer was awesome. I hope the movie lives up to it.
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: Shughes on August 11, 2017, 01:54:13 AM
I think it looks great. I struggle to see Bardem and Jennifer Lawrence as a couple for some reason. I think she's really good but seems like she often ends up getting parts that are slightly too old for her. The music is abrasive but effective, and it'll be nice to see Aronofsky cut loose - not that he ever holds back.
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: Robyn on August 12, 2017, 03:03:29 AM
I haven't seen the trailer yet because I'm hooked already and this sounds like the kind of film you don't want to know much about before seeing it. The little I do know sounds amazing tho.
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: Reel on August 12, 2017, 04:18:44 PM
Watching this trailer is one of the top ten mistakes I've made in my life. The movie looks so damn good, but the trailer goes through almost every beat of the film.
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: WorldForgot on August 12, 2017, 05:19:55 PM
Quote from: Reelist on August 12, 2017, 04:18:44 PM
Watching this trailer is one of the top ten mistakes I've made in my life. The movie looks so damn good, but the trailer goes through almost every beat of the film.

Interesting. Watching the trailer, other than it's a [spoiler] scenario (maybe??) I'm not convinced I know much about the third act
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: Reel on September 06, 2017, 07:14:08 AM
Quote from: WorldForgot on August 12, 2017, 05:19:55 PM
Quote from: Reelist on August 12, 2017, 04:18:44 PM
Watching this trailer is one of the top ten mistakes I've made in my life. The movie looks so damn good, but the trailer goes through almost every beat of the film.

Interesting. Watching the trailer, other than it's a [spoiler] scenario (maybe??) I'm not convinced I know much about the third act

Well, me neither but now I've seen all of those creepy shots instead of watching them unfold within the plot for the first time. I've pretty much forgotten what they are now, though. Something with a [spoiler]? Anyway, 'IT' was my most anticipated film of this year until I saw that trailer, so it's cool. This week we get to see em fight it out! This has to be the better one, there's a quality in it that screams it will go down in the pantheon of great horror films. "IT" is going to be much better than the TV series, but a great film? That's still up in the air.
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on September 16, 2017, 10:20:45 PM
So yeah. Wow. I don't quite have all the words for this yet. But I will say it's going to be the best film of the year by a wide margin. That feels safe to say. This is a legit work of art that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Aronofksy's best and even some of Lars Von Trier's best.

Please go in without spoilers! Although I will say even if you are a bit spoiled, like you've seen that trailer, the movie definitely has further delights in store.



spoilers!

Also spoilers for Antichrist right now:

Quote from: Jeremy Blackman on November 17, 2009, 07:24:52 PMI thought it was obvious, but seriously, their forest hideaway is called "Eden," and the characters are credited as "He" and "She." Remember the piles of bodies that appeared in the tree roots scene, and later on the path in the epilogue? I first thought they were dead bodies, i.e. representations of gynocide, but I convinced myself otherwise. There's no blood, wounds, scarring, or anything that would suggest violence. I haven't cracked open a bible yet, but I'm pretty sure God is said to have given life to flesh, or some such thing. These could be women who have not yet been given life. When "He" eats the forbidden fruit at the very end, the women come to life, and converge toward him peacefully, as if he's the creator. This is some kind of reinterpretation of Genesis, or a new creation myth altogether.

Also recall that the Dafoe character is nailed through the leg and forced to drag a weight around. He even goes into a tomb of sorts and "rises" through the ground. Christ, anyone? (Dafoe has played the character before, after all.) We know LVT is not averse to crucifixion analogies (Dancer in the Dark).

[...]

It could be a Noah's ark type of thing. Look at it this way: The history of misogynism, and indeed even gynocide, had obliterated the female gender to the point of existential crisis — total destruction from within and without. So deep, in fact, were the wounds that they could cause the kind of horror we see in this film, which in this worldview I assume is representative of the whole. Everything is so out of balance that a new beginning is required, so the female gender is recreated.

It's like Aronofksy saw the end of Antichrist and was like "hmm that's good, but can we go a bit further?"

That was some seriously thick allegory. Even small things felt like components of a biblical-style narrative, including the quarreling brothers, and J-Law resting for several days (?) until she finally went to sleep. I'm still absorbing everything and putting it together, but obviously the fable/allegorical qualities get more intense from there. Their house is even called "paradise" (like Eden in Antichrist). My first impression is that these are twin deities — "the inspiration" and the creator. Then we see how humanity breaks down and fails as life plays out. Humans are selfish, misguided, destructive, invasive. They are deeply annoying and endlessly problematic. But the creator still has empathy for his creations all the way through the end — "but we have to forgive them!"

Humanity has to be destroyed ("I'll go take care of this... apocalypse") and remade, and the cycle continues.

Like Antichrist, this was an explosive combination of dazzling filmmaking and mythic storytelling. I want to see it again right now!

If you thought the character names in Antichrist were cute ("He" and "She"), holy crap, check out the credits for this one (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5109784/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast).
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: WorldForgot on September 16, 2017, 11:55:08 PM
This film is very much worth seeing at the cinema for its sound design alone, which I hope is nominated/recognized.


spoilers!


A conversation on the Shoutbox about nihilism comes to mind every now and then. This then seeped into journaling/thinking about faith and grace and, of course, rang out in my head today after the movie. When I'm at my most doubtful it's as if the world were His onslaught.

One I would like to participate in although I hold stake only as precursor (to thought, my own, 'inspiration' but not agent). In those states (and they'll happen to me again, as they do to Mother & Him) I don't understand how anyone could think this is "for them" when nothing seems to be "for me." Ego as institution and (self defeating?) personal struggle. A first communion does feel like this film portrayed it. As a child religious texts come at you with these horrible images, but then you learn to laugh as you watch them recur. Parts of the third act was funny in that same way. 
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: Myxo on September 17, 2017, 02:19:25 AM
So I saw this tonight.

When I saw Requiem for a Dream I thought it was a movie that everyone should see but maybe not more than once. This is just a director through the medium of film, expressing how angry he is with mankind, religion, misogyny.. take your pick.. and doing it in such a way as to disgust and deeply unsettle people to the core. There's a lot of allegory and metaphors to be had. It's going to create a lot of conversation. Xixax is perfect for a movie like this. For me it was just too over-the-top. The performances are incredible. The production is incredible. (The stairwell humanity sequence is almost worth the price of admission alone.) But especially the last act of the film hits you over the head with an anvil over and over again in a way that had me sitting there thinking "ok FUCK I get it, but did we need to see THAT?"

And holy shit if we had to make a top 10 list of the most mismarketed, untrailerable movies of all time I think you have to include it.

Anyway, by all means go and see it if you love film. This one will be a big part of Darren Aronofsky's canon. There's no other way to describe it but as an experience. It's like nothing you've seen for a very long time. But I'm not sure that's necessarily a good thing. In the end I found myself asking is this ultimately just about Darren himself?
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: jenkins on September 17, 2017, 04:49:46 PM
jb is the reason i went to see it. i believe that what he appreciates, and what is true, is that inspection of this movie's innards causes inspection of the innards of human existence, creating a spiritual vivisection within cinematic conversation. i appreciate the fullness of this movie. how bad everyone looks, from a variety of philosophical angles. the anchor is J-Law and her eyes, and i believe she brings it. therefore i believe this movie is rather unchallengeable in pivotal perspectives from which i wish not to back away. what i am not sure of is if i will need or want to watch this movie again. it was rather transparent and its allegorical references are self-nurturing. but again, with its fullness, is it not worth being nurtured? its nightmare narrative challenges the promise of movies bringing us better dreams, and its Cinemascore F solidifies it as what haunted audiences this year, but it is rather too well organized to belong to trash culture, making it a piece of art house from Hollywood. and the summary is, really i cannot dislike Aronofsky much, even if i wanted to.
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on September 17, 2017, 07:01:51 PM
^ Fully agree with all of that, except I do have a strong urge to see it again.


SPOILS

After reading how forward Aronofsky is about the biblical meaning of the film, and thinking back on various details of the movie... every bit of allegory is very much in your face. So on a second watch, rather than looking to solve a puzzle, I anticipate a more dark-comedic/bonkers experience. Kind of like what Rian Johnson is talking about (https://twitter.com/rianjohnson/status/909304341533622272?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.express.co.uk%2Fentertainment%2Ffilms%2F855167%2FMother-movie-Star-Wars-Rian-Johnson-defend-box-office-flop).

That said, I think there are still many layers of philosophical meaning to discover. For example, the film shows humans as selfish and needy, and I wonder if in that way they are made in God's (Javier Bardem's) image. To what extent is mother! an indictment of the Christian God? Each time he creates humanity, they always inevitably cause an apocalypse. Is that part of the fun for him? I'm a bit haunted by his smile at the end.

And you're right — I'm a sucker for grand mythic/spiritual content in a movie, especially if it's a bit of a surprise.
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: RegularKarate on September 18, 2017, 11:59:56 AM
I keep getting enraged by so many people dismissing this as "The Worst Movie of the Century (http://observer.com/2017/09/darren-aronofsky-mother-worst-movie-of-the-year/)". Even if this movie sucks (I haven't decided yet), it's INSANELY BOLD.

It's so bonkers pretentious (not necessarily a bad thing) that I think it's equally "A Poet as a metaphor for God" as it is "God as a metaphor for Aronofski".

There's a LOT going on here. Maybe too much... again, I need to see this again to know whether I think it's "good", but it is at least SOMETHING.

And, yes, the sound design is incredible. I left the theater in a dreamlike state because that sound messed with my head so badly that I started hearing things in that same way after the movie.
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: Drenk on September 18, 2017, 01:31:11 PM
SPOILERS

I haven't read everything that's been written, but nobody seems to talk about marriage? And how the artist exploits his life to make it something he likes better? And how it is for the people who live him kind of weird: the work is an intrusion. The fact that Lawrence has no privacy is so violent—as violent I think that the last act where it becomes physical.

And how crazy is it to make your new girlfriend play in a movie that states that the artist isn't satisfied by reality/the women he is with and that the relationships are a vicious circle of destruction.  :ponder:
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: squints on September 18, 2017, 10:58:19 PM
Well SPOILERS i guess

Mother: they murdered our son!

God/the poet: yeah but they feel really bad about it!
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: Drenk on September 21, 2017, 02:38:28 PM
I agree with Richard Brody.

"In "Mother!," Aronofsky works wonders with his cinematic unconscious, tapping into its fury and turmoil to create a film that, while taking off from an arid Biblical allegory, is in fact a literal drama of personal relationships in a world of middle-aged artists and younger women, very much like the one in which he has worked for decades. In the film, it's the writer's will, the effort to break out of an ordinary life through the strength of his artistic creation, that sets the movie, and Aronofsky's cinematic world, into grotesque and fascinating motion. Fortunately, the movie he made is much more interesting than the one he thought he made."

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/darren-aronofsky-says-mother-is-about-climate-change-but-hes-wrong?mbid=social_facebook

Actually, I think it works on different levels, the one Aronofsky talks about and the rest—what the movie is—but it is hard to take one without the other. This movie is like a monster with different heads.
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on September 21, 2017, 05:56:23 PM
SPOILS ABOUND. JUST EXIT THIS THREAD.

I sort of agree with that, but I would invert it. The allegory of the selfish, needy artist is kind of surface-level. The allegory of Father God and Mother Earth and humanity is a more fulfilling and expansive avenue of interpretation.
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on September 22, 2017, 12:25:12 AM
Quote from: Jeremy Blackman on September 16, 2017, 10:20:45 PMI will say it's going to be the best film of the year by a wide margin.

I might have spoken too soon in my excitement, since Phantom Menace Thread will be out this year as well. But it could be close!

I think this is actually the best film I've seen since Fury Road. Might be better.
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: Just Withnail on September 23, 2017, 04:22:06 AM
SPOILS!


This was an incredible experience. Intense, hilarious, thought-provoking. I love how there was literally a kitchen sink thrown in there.

I also side more with Drenk and Brody on this. For me it's a problem that the supposed underlying allegory is so far removed from the fabric of what we're actually seeing, the actual images. When I'm trying to think of how the plot fits into the climate change allegory, it all fits very neatly, but I'm not sure if I feel the imagery does the same. It's obviously possible, and easy even, to make this film about climate change. But then what about the actual images?

Why tell a story about climate change through these exact images of the mother and the poet? In which way do they actually enlighten us about that? It's so soaked in their domestic dynamics, that I feel to ignore the spesificity of that would be to ignore the very fabric of the film.

This doesn't necessarily dampen the mythological aspects at all. It just angles it more towards being about the interplay between domestic safety/calm and creative destruction, aided by a grand mythological background. As you say JB, it's really just flipping it around. Do the images act as supporting characters to the allegory, or does the allegory act as a supporting character to the images? I think the imagery will always have primacy for me, and I just don't see a lot of things in here that gives me any profound sense of the dynamics of climate change (in the images, not the plot). Whereas the images fucking burn with details about relationship dynamics, domestic life, creativity.

Of course, there maybe shouldn't be a need to call one thing a "supporting character" to the other, but I feel when the imagery is so far removed from what the allegory is supposedly about, and the direct links are pretty much zero, one is forced to choose which perspective to take when one wants to interprete what went on. For me the most fruitful place to start, is with the mother and poet.

Of course, watching it, it isn't so clear cut. Then it was more of a constant oscillation back and forth between the drama and the myth, as it should be. The drama was the myth. But the aspect I get the least giddy thinking about afterwards is the literally-God-and-literally-climate-change angle. There are so many other ways to bring the mythological aspects into play than that.

As an introvert, this is a harrowing film about loosing private space. As a writer, it's a harrowing film about how nervous I am about habits, perfection, domesticity killing a creative spark (though that's probably more an anxiety than a truth). These two oppositions in me found extreme resonance in both characters, and found more than enough to chew on on the "surface" of the film - in the actual imagery we're seeing. To me the mythological aspects helped make these dynamics seem universal and eternal.
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on September 23, 2017, 10:53:18 AM
SPOILERS

Quote from: Just Withnail on September 23, 2017, 04:22:06 AMWhen I'm trying to think of how the plot fits into the climate change allegory, it all fits very neatly, but I'm not sure if I feel the imagery does the same. It's obviously possible, and easy even, to make this film about climate change. But then what about the actual images?

That specific allegory works for me because the images don't neatly match. The film uses its limited visual vocabulary to express that figuratively. If we were to see more obvious visuals, I feel like the metaphor would become too literal.

And I think it's already blatant enough.

Mother and her home, inextricably linked (I love how they seem to share one heart), represent Mother Earth and earth itself. As the invaders multiply, they recklessly assault the house until it's all but completely destroyed. When she finally can't take anymore, Mother hastens the apocalypse and incinerates all life (no coincidence that it's heat that wipes out humanity). And yet there is still a structure upon which new life can grow, with Mother's help, until humanity encroaches once again. And maybe one of these times they'll listen to her.

It's a deeply misanthropic film, but it's also accurate.
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: Just Withnail on September 23, 2017, 11:54:47 AM
I agree, it's more than blatant enough, and I completely agree with your plotting out of the allegory, that was exactly my thinking about it as well. I'm not saying I'd actually want the imagery to be more obvious, I'm just asking what these spesific ones add to the allegory. Why choose this spesific way to tell it?

Personifying the earth as a Mother wanting a perfect home has some beauty too it, and maybe even enough to validate it for me, but it also supposes that the earth gives a shit. In reality we're not destroying the earth, the earth is just earthing away, we're just destroying our ability to live on it. Not become silly about it, but a more accurate allegory would be actually inviting the people in and then they trash the place. Or making a beautiful hotel. Haha. Sorry, this is getting silly. And anyways, this is Aronofsky's vision and I don't need to agree to find it beautiful and interesting.

But still, all this aside, I definitely connected more with the feeling of personal space being invaded, than the for me more distant thought of humanity invading the earth. Of course, watching it, both these things were constantly flittering back and forth in my brain, so I'm not saying I want to force a choice. It can be both. ALLEGORY! Ta-da!
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on September 23, 2017, 12:28:53 PM
Quote from: Just Withnail on September 23, 2017, 11:54:47 AMPersonifying the earth as a Mother wanting a perfect home has some beauty too it, and maybe even enough to validate it for me, but it also supposes that the earth gives a shit. In reality we're not destroying the earth, the earth is just earthing away, we're just destroying our ability to live on it.

This is how I see it. As I was describing, Mother doesn't literally represent the earth — she is Mother Earth, and Earth is her creation. She is the "inspiration" (as Javier Bardem says) that makes earth possible. So as the actual creative force behind Earth, Mother would be acutely interested in Earth's beauty as well as its structural/physical integrity. We see this throughout the film. Mother is constantly going around checking on things and fixing things, making sure her home remains in working order and in good aesthetic condition.

So Aronofsky presupposes that our actual earth does have a kind of "spirit" to it. If that idea repels you, I can see being resistant to this angle.

Quote from: Just Withnail on September 23, 2017, 11:54:47 AMBut still, all this aside, I definitely connected more with the feeling of personal space being invaded

I basically agree. For sure, the biggest initial impact the movie had on me was as an introvert's nightmare.
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: Cloudy on September 23, 2017, 03:17:46 PM
this kind of talk about the movie, and the allegories the movie tries to force upon itself makes me also think the artist who made this is just like the Javier Bardem character.

a movie about an artist who has zero self-awareness. don't blame it on god, the earth, climate change? whatever, fuck I am a fucking asshole who creates these kinds of life catastrophe's, selfishly destroying the people who love me for this art. and I spark these allegories to distract the viewer and myself that I am this way.

i enjoyed it for sure, but vay... it's probably true that the best stuff comes when you have zero distance from your work.
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on September 23, 2017, 03:42:38 PM
[CONTINUED SPOILERS]

Whoa, I completely disagree. I think the movie is clearly part confessional, complete with an actress in the beginning who looks like Rachel Weisz, Aronofsky's ex-girlfriend. The artist in this story is deliberately characterized as selfish and needy. He acknowledges but willfully ignores his wife's feelings. He just sits in this house doing nothing until he receives an adequate amount of praise and drains enough from those around him. His need to be praised and worshipped leads to tragedy and then the apocalypse. This is most unflattering depiction of an artist that I can remember seeing. Are you suggesting that was all accidental?
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: Cloudy on September 23, 2017, 03:43:41 PM
you're right, but i think it's a very fake self-loathing confession. . . . and i can appreciate that.
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: pete on September 23, 2017, 04:35:13 PM
I think this film has a very college grasp on what an allegory is, and is kinda lazy with its own writing, hence the rift in consensus right now. I see Aranofsky kinda trying to channel his inner Von Trier, but Von Trier - even at his most manipulative/ exploitative/ smarmy, still put in the work and still made sure the audience would be invested in what was happening on screen. This whole film felt like an explanation video for a better movie. I think this man hides behind the buzzword "allegory" to deflect from having to write an actual female character.
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: Alexandro on September 29, 2017, 12:20:49 PM


Allegories aside... the film is quite a visceral experience. Films like these (Enter the void is another that comes to mind) always piss people off. The general public finds them too weird and the "cult" "smart" "film literate" audiences out there can feel the filmmakers are masquerading their dumbness with pyrotechnics... meaning the film "is not as smart as it believes it is"... which is besides the point.

To me, it worked because it made me feel physically uncomfortable, impatient, at moments desperate. I was laughing but was always on the edge of my seat, and trying to avoid thinking that "this will explode at some point and it won't be nice". It felt like a nightmare and only a couple of times I thought "yeah, this is like The Exterminating Angel".

The performances are all the more awesome because they are impossible, these are impossible characters. I mean Javier Bardem, only some genius could pull that off. That character makes no sense as a human being, only as an idea. Yet he somehow manages to inject life into the guy. They all do it, and that's what counts. They can't be real characters in a normal dramatic fashion, that's part of the charm the film has...

anyway to each his own, but I loved it.
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: samsong on October 02, 2017, 04:06:19 AM
andrzej zulawski's possession is, like, WAY better.

enjoyed the rollercoaster-esque pacing and general filmmaking craft on display.  i don't think you can argue that this isn't well made.  performances across the board are strong.  harris and pfeifer got under my skin to the point of maximum discomfort.  javier bardem's face is glorious.  all its virtues though are eclipsed by its dumbness.  i'm more disappointed than incensed though, which in and of itself is disappointing.  was hoping to feel strongly either way, but here i am, wondering what the fuck the big deal is. 

Title: Re: mother!
Post by: ©brad on October 04, 2017, 01:09:31 PM
Still haven't seen this yet but ARONOFSKY AND JLAW ARE NOW DATING?! (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/movies/jennifer-lawrence-darren-aronofsky-mother-explained.html)
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: BB on December 21, 2017, 07:56:44 AM
Finally caught up with this. Really quite enjoyed it. Then I read Aronofsky's statement and enjoyed it a little less.

Still, might be my favourite of his films so far. Managed to evoke very specific feelings I've experienced in dreams but not in waking life, which was fun.
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: ElPandaRoyal on December 21, 2017, 10:03:14 AM
Quote from: ©brad on October 04, 2017, 01:09:31 PM
Still haven't seen this yet but ARONOFSKY AND JLAW ARE NOW DATING?! (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/movies/jennifer-lawrence-darren-aronofsky-mother-explained.html)

To be fair, he has been working on it for a long time.

(https://i.giphy.com/3o6ZsUoeDRJ3W5RGE0.gif)
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: ©brad on December 21, 2017, 10:41:23 AM
^hah!

Apparently they broke up because he wouldn't stop reading and complaining about Mother! reviews (no joke).
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on December 21, 2017, 11:41:49 AM
Big news:

Back on? Jennifer Lawrence reunites with ex Darren Aronofsky in NYC... one month after they split (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-5202851/Jennifer-Lawrence-spotted-NYC-Darren-Aronofsky.html)
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: Something Spanish on December 21, 2017, 05:51:35 PM
on the WTF interview Aronofsky claims mother! is the best thing he's ever done.
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: ©brad on December 21, 2017, 06:00:24 PM
Quote from: Something Spanish on December 21, 2017, 05:51:35 PM
on the WTF interview Aronofsky claims mother! is the best thing he's ever done.

I think he said it was the ending of Mother! that was the best thing he's ever done.
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on December 31, 2017, 09:23:27 PM
Rewatched mother! and oh boy does it hold up. I feel even more strongly about it now. Every moment of this film is so perfectly crafted—each word, each camera movement, every delicious morsel of sound design.

This is J-Law's best performance, Aronofsky's best work, and one of the best films of the decade.

SPOILERS

I hate to say this, but Get Out feels very one-trick by comparison. With mother!, there are so many fun things to discover. Countless little jokes (verbal and visual) and lots of dark clever delights. (Example: at 44:53, we very briefly see that the ground is still smoldering from the last conflagration.)

But most of all, there is a bounty of achingly beautiful metaphors. And I'm not talking about the biblical ones. When everyone was discussing this movie, I somehow bought into the consensus that its themes were very heavy-handed once you caught on. But that's really not true at all. This movie is so thematically dense. It actually strongly reminds me of Dogville in the way every other line kind of knocks you out with its incisiveness and impishness.

And it's so ridiculously precise in the way it renders the introvert's nightmare. A lot of that actually comes from J-Law's performance—she carries the film far more than I had realized.

Side note, this is a great read: Mother! is even more harrowing when you watch it with your pregnant wife (https://www.avclub.com/mother-is-even-more-harrowing-when-you-watch-it-with-y-1818524016)
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: jenkins on June 29, 2021, 03:16:57 AM
you understand, jb, that this movie is a goldmine for me, because it towers the others and yet it's sitting around unnoticed in meme land. people don't even know what to do with it, which reinforces my concept that people are clueless

sorry, I don't want to shittalk normies, I want to focus on appreciating this movie. it will never not hold up because it's colossally good and essentially flawless. it's not literally flawless, in terms of the bozo idea of starting with its worst shot. "she's on fire but wait: she cries." and this inclusion later reinforces the concept of a circular narrative but god, the things you do to hold the audience's hand. sure. what I'm saying is Lowery talked about innumerable interpretations of interpretable narratives, but here's what one-and-done looks like. what the fuck are you going to alter about this landscape while retaining its excellence? please. this sucker is check marked

I don't know much about introverts or the idea of introverts I guess, so I don't think of it that way at all. in the documentary special feature Aronofsky describes it as emotionally true. Bardem calls it an emotional journey of the world itself. and some producer or whatever says "I think these themes are, like, how emotion works." you can really excel at art when you realize you can do anything emotionally believable. with movies specifically, if the character believes in it the audience will too. oh, this is what reality looks like? it does feel like it. that offers a lot of possibilities. you, jb, highlighted J-Law, and she's the foundation of the movie, absolutely. this movie couldn't exist without her. please refer to jb's post in terms of crucial points worthy of further agreement. though I want to highlight J-Bard, who flowered through Almodóvar. I've semi-recently stated that Bardem's performance in Live Flesh is the best performance of the 90s. specifically, I said it is better than the shitfest that is David Thewlis's role in Naked. show me more of life or why bother. show me the feelings I struggle to find or what have you accomplished. now, J-Bard is appreciated in meme land through No Country for Old Men, because he kills it there, and because of the Coen bros, but most importantly because J-Bard can bring it. he's a real deal and well, that's why Aronofsky hired him. he doesn't have a botched line the entire movie. yes: his acting lifts the movie. his acting is an essential part of the movie. J-Law is being mistreated left/right but J-Bard is never the bad guy: he has this whole partner/host dilemma

Michelle Pfeiffer and Ed Harris: also flawless. it's wildly commendable how perfectly conceived the characters are. god: when I saw the swat team entire again. that was: so fun again. when the molotov cocktail or other incendiary gets thrown on the cop shield: so good. I've expressed my point to an amount I consider sufficient enough to end writing this post

I recommend this movie, personally
Title: Re: mother!
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on June 29, 2021, 04:03:58 AM
Nice. Always good to see people appreciate this movie. It's become one of my all-time faves.

Re: the introvert's nightmare. What mother! renders so accurately is that cycle of invasions. An onslaught of social obligations and absurdly presumptuous and unexpected impositions that seems to increase in frequency forever. It's also about the violation of private space. About being caught with your nightgown unbuttoned a little too much. And separately, it's about the destruction of peaceful, structured space. Some people work really hard to achieve that, then someone jumps on your sink and everything starts breaking down.