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Mother (Darren Aronofsky) - early reviews from Venice

wenis

Registered for GAF on September 11, 2001.
So, just came back with friends.

They all hated it except for me, calling it:

-- Overwrought yet simultaneously empty
-- Lacking a message
-- Needless allegory
-- Bad allegory because it's not a 1:1 comparison with the subject matter
-- Pretentious

: among other things. I was the lone holdout in a sea of complaints.

I think my cred is shot with them. Now I'm gonna have to watch some fucking cheap horror schlock like Jigsaw as retribution, because they're going to hang "mother!" over my head forever.

Thanks GAF. xP

I'd tell em to kick rocks.
 
Just saw this with my sister, I came out going "I'll have to sleep on it, I'm not sure I 'got it'", she was like "I've never related with a movie more in my entire life."
 

Einchy

semen stains the mountaintops
Just saw this with my sister, I came out going "I'll have to sleep on it, I'm not sure I 'got it'", she was like "I've never related with a movie more in my entire life."
I can't remember a movie in recent memory that is so divisive as this one. I've heard soooo many people say it's terrible and just as many say it's great.
 

tr00per

Member
So I'm just gonna spoiler my post just in case

saw this with a group. We had a discussion afterwards. At first I thought it was a story with a metaphor for love and relationships. Then a friend proposed that it was actually a metaphor for society/humanity dealing with tragedy. I later came up with the idea that it was about mother earth and humans destroying it, or perhaps it's about the realities of being an admired artist.

Any of these theories I enjoyed but particularly the first and last. I thought it was great to have an actual discussion about a recent film beyond just spectacles and one liners. I really enjoyed it. I felt like I got something out of it.

As a friend put it "I can respect what the film accomplished. I hear a lot of people came out of the film feeling cheated like I did. But alot of people think it's a masterpiece and a lot of people think it's pretentious bullshit. Either way it's a lot of people talking about it and in the day and age of cookie cutter marvel movies and shitty reboots of 80s cartoons, it's a welcome change in my opinion"

But when that friend did some research, he started telling me it was a biblical allegory and for some reason I started to like it a lot less. Is this really what Aronofsky was going for?

And which scene did Lawrence break a rib in?


But holy fucking shit it was tough to stomach some of those scenes. I couldn't imagine being a woman who has experienced trauma and watching that movie; it might trigger some PTSD. And I understand the theory behind it but the way it was shot felt really claustrophobic.
 
So, just came back with friends.

They all hated it except for me, calling it:

-- Overwrought yet simultaneously empty
-- Lacking a message
-- Needless allegory
-- Bad allegory because it's not a 1:1 comparison with the subject matter
-- Pretentious

: among other things. I was the lone holdout in a sea of complaints.

I think my cred is shot with them. Now I'm gonna have to watch some fucking cheap horror schlock like Jigsaw as retribution, because they're going to hang "mother!" over my head forever.

Thanks GAF. xP

Ugh. What a horrible, horrible criticism of a movie, or anything.

People can be pretentious; when filmmaker X talks about how they're making art and not just movies or that the audience just didn't get their deep message, yeah, they're being pretentious. But no movie can ever be pretentious. When does a movie ever assert itself as being smarter than other movies? How is a movie being different or abstract synonymous with thinking itself cleverer or better? There's plenty of great stuff out there that can be unique and a little weird but still be hella entertaining. If something just sucks, then say it sucks and explain why, but don't give us the run-around with your weasel words that make you sound like you have some perspective about your criticism when you clearly don't.

Sorry, I don't mean to insult your friends, but "pretentious" is up there next to "overrated" and "repetitive" (in regards to video games) as my most hated discussion vocabulary.
 

C4Lukins

Junior Member
So Rex Reed said this film was maybe the worst film of the Centaurly.

But he also talked shit about Black Swan and Requiem.
 

robotrock

Banned
So Rex Reed said this film was maybe the worst film of the Centaurly.

"From the idiotic drug-addict hokum Requiem for a Dream to the overrated, overwrought and over-hyped "

I don't know this fellow but he seems bad. Wish I got paid to write about movies and use useless criticisms like "overrated" and "over-hyped"
 

CloudWolf

Member
This movie lost me very fucking fast. As soon as JLaw let a complete stranger woman whom she didnt know the name of talk yo her about sex life in front of the laundry machine, I said to myself this movie is complete bullshit.

None of these of people behave like English speaking Americans.

Well,
they're not normal people, none of them are, so it makes sense they act 'off'.

But when that friend did some research, he started telling me it was a biblical allegory and for some reason I started to like it a lot less. Is this really what Aronofsky was going for?
The religious allegories are 100% there: Adam and Eve, God and Mother Earth, Cain and Abel, Jesus, Muslim and Hindu rituals, they're all in there. But pretty much all your theories could be spot-on, Aronofsky isn't a religious man, his portrayal of religion in this movie is a means to an end. IMO the film is about many things at once. It's about society, the world and the creation of art and celebrity culture. Religion plays a major role because it's the major connecting tissue between all these issues. Religion in general plays a huge role in the way society evolved and is still evolving. Also, the way we as a society view artists we love is also pretty close to deification, so again a God allegory would fit here.

In the end, I think much of the interpretation of the film is on the viewer. If you want to see it as a critique on religion and society and nothing else, that's cool, but it could be a hundred other things.
 
I think the ending went too far. The first two thirds of it made me invested in the human story of it all. And the ending went a little too heavy on the weirdness for the sake of a metaphor. Still some powerful moments in that section though.

No real spoilers but just in case.
 
Wow, ...surprised people seem impressed with this waste of decent cinematography and actors.

It is most definitely NOT a horror flick.

The half assed biblical allegories came no where near as ham fisted as how the entire thing is practically about a relationship with a celebrity.
 

Liamc723

Member
Wow, ...surprised people seem impressed with this waste of decent cinematography and actors.

It is most definitely NOT a horror flick.

The half assed biblical allegories came no where near as ham fisted as how the entire thing is practically about a relationship with a celebrity.

...But it's not about that. You clearly just didn't get it.
 

zeemumu

Member
Well,
they're not normal people, none of them are, so it makes sense they act 'off'.


The religious allegories are 100% there: Adam and Eve, God and Mother Earth, Cain and Abel, Jesus, Muslim and Hindu rituals, they're all in there. But pretty much all your theories could be spot-on, Aronofsky isn't a religious man, his portrayal of religion in this movie is a means to an end. IMO the film is about many things at once. It's about society, the world and the creation of art and celebrity culture. Religion plays a major role because it's the major connecting tissue between all these issues. Religion in general plays a huge role in the way society evolved and is still evolving. Also, the way we as a society view artists we love is also pretty close to deification, so again a God allegory would fit here.

In the end, I think much of the interpretation of the film is on the viewer. If you want to see it as a critique on religion and society and nothing else, that's cool, but it could be a hundred other things.

Don't forget about the
great sink flood
and
Mankind fucking up Mother Earth to the point of her deciding to purge them all before everything starts over.
 

gabbo

Member
SO, now I'm more intrigued by this movie than ever, but I'm wondering if it's something I would want to take my fiance to see. Given that I don't really know the basic plot and she can be rather sensitive to certain things on film, I don't want to put her through something traumatic in a cinema.
 
SO, now I'm more intrigued by this movie than ever, but I'm wondering if it's something I would want to take my fiance to see. Given that I don't really know the basic plot and she can be rather sensitive to certain things on film, I don't want to put her through something traumatic in a cinema.
If she is pregnant or you guys have a newborn...I'd give the movie a wide berth
 

gabbo

Member
If she is pregnant or you guys have a newborn...I'd give the movie a wide berth

We aren't/do not, but if
Rape or torture come into play
, I may have to pass.
I wouldn't take her to see À l'intérieur (Inside)
which this sounds like a mind-trippy version of from what spoiler free bits I've read here. She's a Rosemary's Baby fan though, iirc, so it would really depend on what kind of gruesome the film goes for I guess.
 

Catphish

Member
Finally got around to seeing this last night.

Loved it. Absolute masterpiece. Will probably watch it several more times to analyze the symbolism.

It's an allegory that works from the micro to the macro. So rich in meaning. I'll be pondering this thing for a long time.

👍👍
 

Naibel

Member
Ouch that necrobump ^^ !

But then again, can't say that I disagree with you. I like Aronofsky's works quite a bit and this one was no exception.

It's intense, claustrophobic, confusing, chockful of symbolism and mindfuckery. Jennifer Lawrence went through so much shit in this movie, it was sometimes very hard to watch, especially at the end.

I agree that it does feel a tad pretentious, and that said symbolism is massively in-your-face at times. Like yeah, the religious undertones are as clear as day in some scenes.

But man, the buildup was so incredible, it went from 0 to 9000 quick fast and I do have a soft spot obnoxious symbolism in art. It's basically "Acquired Taste : The Movie".

"Black Swan" shares a lot from "Perfect Blue", that's why I loved that movie. I feel that this movie shares quite a lot from Eva, especially the second part of End of Evangelion. I don't know if that was intentional or not, but knowing the director, I'm pretty sure it is.

I gonna maybe rewatch it one day, it is indeed a movie very much worth analyzing.
 
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