If "Darkest Hour" is a big man who restores key moments in history with an oil painting-like texture, "Mother! ” is a fable of despair with flames and blood. I've been talking about recommending this movie to several people, but I know it won't be liked by more people.
"Mother! "Different from all mainstream movies, it is dark, obscure, crazy, desperate, and the tense camera language is impenetrable, and the whole movie watching can only be described as heart-wrenching. It is destined to appeal only to audiences who pay attention to the meaning of the film and the acting skills of the actors. Anyone who tries to find too much entertainment in this film will go back when they are happy.
The first shot of the feature film is very uncomfortable. In the raging fire, a woman's face is burned black and charred, and she sheds two lines of tears before turning to ashes. The next episode seems to be completely disconnected from the first shot - Mother and Him living in a secluded villa, Him writing, Mother being a full-time wife, and life is uneventful.
Just when you thought it was a life drama, an inexplicable man suddenly visited and Mother's private space was invaded. Then more people poured in, and the two's Garden of Eden was captured by outsiders. When you think that this is a horror film where doves occupy a magpie's nest, you find that this film has nothing to do with horror at all. It seems to hide some deeper metaphor, the shaky hand-held camera, Mother's troubled eyes, and the house that keeps pace with Mother's mood, all grab the viewer's heart every second.
When you see the mid-section, you start not thinking about "Mother! "What do you want to express, you just want what kind of unbelievable plot will happen next, until the final tyranny and chaos roll in, until you find that the story is reincarnated over and over again.
It is a metaphor for religion, gender, politics, and even an abstract version of the history of human destruction. With this kind of awareness, the almost crazy and obvious hints in the film will make you feel a burst of despair.
The first layer of despair comes from the most accessible part of the story: the two sexes (marital reproduction).
The sticky angst can leave you breathless even for non-female audiences. This breathless anxiety comes entirely from the heroine mother. Short shots and facial close-ups document her pervasive anxiety. The mother wakes up to find that her husband is not there, disturbed; someone enters her life, the mother is restless; the blindness and arbitrariness of the husband makes the mother even more disturbed. The tension during pregnancy and the worry about the behavior of the spouse made the mother besieged by anxiety at any time, until the conception was successful, and the mind regained a moment of tranquility.
She tried to share the joy of giving birth to a new life with her husband, but his husband was so obsessed with his career that he didn't seem to care so much about the children. In nature, male animals are anxious until they complete gene transfer, and once conception is successful, they return their attention to themselves and successfully transfer reproductive pressure to females.
In real life, many men ignore the reproductive pressure of their wives, causing them to live in anxiety and panic all the time. When Him keeps devoting his energy to external affairs, ignoring his wife's feelings, mother trusts him less and less. But even so, their lives could continue until the vanity-loving Him brought an external crisis to his home, which finally caused the emotional crisis of the two to break out. The forbearing mother launched a desperate counterattack against her marriage life and threw herself into a sea of anger.
Many people think that this is an anti-marriage movie, and women don't want to get married after watching it. But I don't think Darren Aronofsky, with his ambition and talent, would use such a lengthy foreshadowing to discuss such a narrow issue. If he wants to express women's anxiety in marriage, there are at least ten real situations that push people to the brink of despair. Think of his masterpieces "Requiem for a Dream" and "Black Swan" to know his foundation.
So, "Mother! "The metaphor about marriage is just an element buried in the plot, and what Darren Aronofsky wants to express is probably his despair for the human species (human nature) and compassion for human suffering.
The second layer of despair comes from a religious metaphor: God's curse on mankind.
The Bible says that the LORD "formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living being called Adam" "from the rib that the man took from him, he formed a woman" to Adam. be a wife. "Adam named his wife Eve because she was the mother of all living things." But God couldn't stop human sin. Eve couldn't stand the temptation of the snake and stole the apple from the Garden of Eden, and was cursed by God. After that, Adam and Eve gave birth to Cain and Abel, the brothers fought, and Cain killed Abel.
"Mother! The first half of ” is actually telling the story of Genesis - a man named Man who suddenly visited, he was injured in the rib (Adam's rib made Eve), a woman named Woman who came suddenly, claiming to be Man's wife , they smashed the hero's gem because of curiosity, and copulated in the house, and then gave birth to two sons who killed each other. Strangely, however, instead of driving away the disturbing family, the male lead invites them to their home for a funeral.
What kind of person could take in Adam and Eve? Of course God. Whether Man or Woman, they are all products of God Him. Even if they showed their sinful side, Him would still take them in.
So, who is mother? It is the Virgin Mary, a symbol of good qualities that God characterized as truth, goodness, beauty, peace, devotion, etc. when God created the world.
However, the Creator cannot stop the evil of mankind. The descendants of Xiadang and Eve are full of desires. They are greedy, selfish, cunning, fanatical, and ruthless. They break into God’s Garden of Eden, steal, loot, loot, destroy, and use the gifts given by God. A little bit of wisdom builds a religion, admits fanatics, then thinks it's the truth and slaughter those who don't want to join forces. They slaughtered in the name of support, and committed evil in the name of faith. In the movie, the baby who symbolized the Son of God was sacrificed on the altar, the Virgin Mother was desecrated, and the truth, goodness, beauty, and equality she represented were destroyed by sinful human beings .
So, at the last moment, the desperate mother destroyed the home and killed all human beings.
But what can be done? The fate of mankind repeats itself. The Virgin is just a pawn of God. The Virgin exhausted all her efforts, and in the end, God had to take out her heart and start the next cycle again. Because human beings need truth, goodness, beauty, and peace. Although these good things are not worth the sins of human beings, even God cannot change the cycle of human destiny.
Of course, the second half of the film can also be seen as a metaphor for European refugee policy. The male protagonist Him represents the white left who blindly offers his love, the mother represents the conservative rightist, and the people who were taken into the house by the male protagonist represent the refugees. Because the "white left male protagonist" did not listen to the "rightist female protagonist"'s opinions, the home was eventually destroyed. These people are in ruins.
Maybe Darren Aronofsky really had this idea, but how can this show Darren Aronofsky's ambition to explore human nature? Darren Aronofsky only used "three days" of narrative time in the movie (hope I'm not mistaken), he obviously didn't want to express A specific problem, and it does not want to express a specific character's predicament. The film uses Christian stories as a metaphor for the birth and destruction of human beings.
In fact, Darren Aronofsky is not the first time to express his attitude towards human nature. The characters in "Requiem for a Dream" all want to make themselves better, but all fall into the abyss of degeneration. . In his other religious film work "Noah's Ark: Journey of Creation", except for the protagonist Noah, there is no good thing for human beings. God is angry with such a human being and will wash away all sin with a great flood. And "Mother! " is just a further expression of Darren Aronofsky's attitude towards humanity.
Darren Aronofsky's movie is not difficult to understand, but as a movie without a clear direction, ordinary audiences will quit in the middle of watching the movie, and they will lose the opportunity to understand deeply. Friends who are fortunate enough to watch the film, I believe that when thinking about the meaning of the film, they will also be impressed by the perfect acting skills of the big cousin and the tension presented by the image itself.
Of course, the film is too abstract, and my understanding may be wrong.
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