If you just think this is a movie, then you must have never been a mother

Graciela 2021-12-27 08:01:31

I know such a mother, from Jilin in the northeast, with a loud voice and hearty laughter. It is said that the woman who came out of the black earth has a staunch and straightforward character, and her actions are crisp and swift. This is true. Just because her husband had an affair, she ran away from home in a fit of anger and went to France. In Paris, she is like all the migrant workers who have left their hometowns to smuggle over. She went out early and returned late, and worked hard just to "save enough money" to return to China and "live a good life". She goes out in the dark before the day is clear, and usually takes more than an hour in the car to do housekeeping in a French villa on the other side of the city. The villa is large, with many rooms, and the task of cleaning up and down is quite heavy. Even though she has flexible hands and feet and agile movements, she is sometimes too busy to eat lunch. Two years later, she figured out how to bring her newly-adult son to Paris. Together, the mother and son rented a small room of more than ten square meters in a low-rent area near Paris, with a bunk bed, and her son had a bunk bed on top of her. The bunk under bed, although the place is not big, but after some care of her, it is also clean and warm. When chatting with her, I rarely hear her complaining about the hard work and the hardship in a foreign country. The most talked about is the "son". She said that as long as her son is stable and can live a good life with hope, she will feel relieved and will be able to return to the country for retirement.

I also know another mother. She was born in the early days of New China. She is devoted to the Buddha and is kind and generous. She has never done anything to hurt others in her life. She has raised five children during the turbulent years. All four daughters are now married and have children of their own. But his youngest son was the only one who suffered irreversible mental damage due to a drowning incident when he was young. Most of the time, he is no different from ordinary people, his behavior is not unusual, and he even tells some jokes to make everyone happy. But sometimes, the devil in his head suddenly broke out without warning, he screamed, beat objects, and even became violent or made self-inflicted actions. The mother loves her son and has always allowed her to live with her and take care of his daily life. Until one day, the son lost control again for no reason, and this time he pointed the porcelain vase on the Buddhist altar at his mother's forehead.

If the true stories of these two mothers are intertwined, it is the single mother Diane in the movie "Mommy". Life always seems too cruel to some people. Diane's husband passed away, was unemployed at home, and barely found a housekeeping job but she was still financially struggling. She had to raise and take care of her son with mental disorders on her own. With hyperactivity, hyperactivity and even frequent violent tendencies and behaviors, Steve was like a woman at any time. A bomb that could detonate. At this time, if the director Xavier Dolan stood on the moral high ground and portrayed Diane as a weak and pitiful woman, or leaned under the feet of the character and looked up, portraying her as a female King Kong with a golden bell and iron shirt. The movie will completely rotten tomatoes. The important reason why "Mummy" was able to win the Jury Prize at the 67th Cannes Film Festival this year is that it allows the audience to enter the life of a real woman and an ordinary mother from a head-up perspective.

Therefore, the mother in the film speaks noisy and vulgar, coupled with the thick and salty French accent in Quebec and her "pretty creative" dressing style. Diane at the beginning of the film is not a likable "virtuous" Wife and mother". But as the story unfolded, her enthusiasm and straightforwardness, simplicity and tenacity, slowly won the hearts of the audience.

She will be brave, carelessly when signing the son’s discharge agreement, chewing gum and take out a bunch of keychains full of various small objects, pick out a ballpoint pen from it, and sign her name on the document, and then Pulling her son into the sunlight on the street without looking back; she will be vulnerable, crying in front of her son when she is unemployed, like a little girl who needs comfort from others, until the son put her arms around her and whispered, "We are one Team, ok? I will take care of you"; she will be afraid, when her son loses control, she will overthrow the bookshelf between her and her son, hide in the room and shout desperately to try to calm her son; she will also enjoy life, Whether it’s riding a bicycle and laughing in the wind or dancing to the music after dinner; she will also struggle with pain. After the suicide attempt, she reluctantly decided to send him to a mental hospital, but she saw the doctors trying to catch her son. When the electric shock is used forcibly, he almost loses his mind, like a frightened cheetah.

When Steve cut his arteries with a knife on the shelf in the supermarket, he looked up in a daze to see Diane and asked her:
- "We still love each other deeply, right?"
--"This is what we do best, man," Diane answered calmly.

So I remembered the words of Romain Roland: There is only one kind of heroism in this world, and that is to still love it after recognizing the truth of life.

"Mummy" is the second film about the delicate emotions between mother and child by young Canadian director Xavier Dolan. In 2009, he wrote, directed and acted in the film "J'ai tué ma mère" (J'ai tué ma mère). For the story between a gay rebellious boy and a single mother, he won the Art Film Award for the Director’s Biweekly Unit at the Cannes Film Festival that year. And this time "Mummy" won the jury award. When Dolan received the trophy from Jane Campion, he cried with joy. He said that because of the influence of Jane Campion's movie "The Piano", he decided to record and shoot those Stories of great women in real life.

Finally, back to the name of the movie, "Mommy", not only because Diane played the role of a mother, there is also a figurative symbol in the movie, that is, a necklace engraved with the word Mommy given to Diane by his son Steve. Although Diane suspected and blamed her son for stealing the gift when she received the gift, she never took it off for a moment. Perhaps like this necklace, Diane was also branded with the word "Mother" while wearing it. And every woman, since the moment the child was born, this little life has since become the "first in line" in life, and will never leave her life.

I personally don't have much patience with children, especially for the kind of bear children who cry in public places, and I can't wait to give him a sleeping pill (not very humane but true feeling). But often when I am complaining about those "hateful" little shit kids, the experienced elders around me will smile knowingly and say meaningfully: "When you have your own child, you will know."

View more about Mommy reviews

Extended Reading

Mommy quotes

  • Steve Després: Remember what dad used to say: "Grab the future by the balls. Fuck the past in the ass".

  • Steve Després: Maybe, one day, you won't love me anymore. It's true. It happens.

    Diane 'Die' Després: Me... I'll always be there for you. You're my priority.

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