Pi is the same director, yes? I haven't seen it, but I think that's an Aronofsky as well.
I'll agree that it's at least a surreal story. It definitely required a paradigm shift for me while I was watching it. I started out looking for standard story (as standard as indie/Aronofsky gets, anyway), and quickly realised that, if I was going to enjoy the film, I had to stop looking for what I expected and start looking for what the film wanted to be.
I suppose a movie is anything that's up on the screen, as far as literal definitions go. But I think what I meant was that most films are there to tell you a story with a beginning, middle, and end - even if they shuffle it around. We expect a narrative about characters, or a documentary about a subject.
For me, I think Mother defies that somewhat because its story doesn't "follow". It juxtaposes images, character motivations are often unclear at the best of times, and logical rules don't really follow in the way they do in most films. Take the agent character (I think she was an agent?) who comes in as a press handler or manager or something, but then disappears and reappears as one of the cult people in the house. There's no reason there, no logical, trackable progression. She just "is this" now because the movie is showing us the evolution of the cult.
I don't mean to say Mother doesn't go from one place to another or has no story. Maybe you're closer than I am to accurately describing it.
Let me try to re-phrase to drill down at it a bit... I think Mother isn't worried about narrative. I think it's worried about making us *feel* rather than think. It's not about a character arc, it's about inhabiting a place (the house) with a person (the mother) who we identify with while she is swept along, sometimes fighting, sometimes accepting, sometimes running, but always just part of this madness.
There is a "real life" quality there, maybe. We can't control our environment. Did anybody else feel a little "Jennifer Lawrence" over the past couple of years, watching people clean out the toilet paper aisle and cloistering only to come out of hiding too soon and bugger the whole "social distancing" thing so fast that it all went crashing down again? Real life has narratives imposed on it by us. There is no empirical "hippy era", but we look at the '60s and go, "We'll call it that," even though there's no beginning and no end, it's all just cycles and cul-de-sacs.
Maybe that's what Mother is?
PS
I said I'd try and clear it up and feel like maybe it got muddier.
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acidraindrop (3055)
2 years ago
oh shit, I never sent out my reply to this.
Yeah, as it turns out, it is the same director...so fitting that I used Pi as an example XD/
Actually, you did clear it up quite a bit. I see what you mean now when you're saying that it's not really a "film". Things kinda just happen without a rhyme nor reason. But not in the way a bad movie does it due to poor editing or writing. It's just because this sort of consistency with the characters, their scenes, and their actions, just isn't a priority for this film. So if you're looking for that, you're gonna be completely disappointed. There IS a story. As you originally noted, it's not an abstract art film. There is something concrete here to follow, the path to follow isn't an ordinary cinematic experience.
Interesting take away. The viewer actually does kinda feel like what the mother/Lawrence feels lol. You're just kinda swept along with this ride, where Javier and the rest of the world is doing all this chaotic stuff around you, and you're just kinda just going with the flow.
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Ace_Spade (9577)
2 years ago
Phew! I don't always know how I'm coming across and I have had conversations where I had to untangle some threads to continue. There was one I just had to peace out of, but that was the other gent just not getting what I was saying regardless of how I said it.
It certainly isn't an anarrative (like asexual) because it's poorly edited, written, or planned out.
I also see your point where it does have a storyline, or at least character arcs (or character spirals?) that set it apart from a hodgepodge of images.
I really do suspect that the viewer is supposed to view the world as though they almost "are" the mother, yeah. Most films have you relate to a character, this film is almost like, "Here: you be this person for two hours". I'd have to watch it again to confirm this, but I seem to recall a lot of camera angles that show us what she sees, or looking over her shoulder, just as often as ones where she dominates the frame.
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acidraindrop (3055)
2 years ago
Hahaha understandable.
I don't recall a lot of the camera angles really but I think you may be correct. Haven't seen it in a while but yeah, I do think we are supposed to be swept along like she is, in confusion. I wonder if that's thematically intentional as well, above and beyond the general cinematic trope of having someone the audience can relate to.
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Ace_Spade (9577)
2 years ago
I think it would have to be intentional. They'd have spent weeks planning those shots, sweeping around, turning back, now everything's changed. Imagine all the extras and coordination and choreography. Every detail had to be planned. I have to assume that we're suppose to be connecting with her and empathizing with what she's feeling.
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