by Peter J. O’Connell
Mother!. Released:
Sept. 2017. Runtime: 121 mins. MPAA Rating: R for strong, disturbing, violent
content, and some sexuality, nudity, and language.
For most films, reviewers feel an ethical obligation not to
reveal all the key plot points—or, at least, to preface such revelations with a
“spoiler alert.” Some films, however, may be more like allegories or other
literary texts where understanding the meaning of the work as contained in its
overall structure is more important than any specific twists and turns of plot.
With such works—and writer/director Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! is one of them—an approach similar to that of an explication de texte may assist the
viewer’s appreciation.
Aronofsky is a filmmaker fond of using legends, myths, and
parables in his works, which some have compared to dark, very dark fairy tales.
His debut feature, Pi (1998), dealt
with the Jewish (and Buddhist) legend that the world will end once all the
names of God are known. Black Swan
(2010) utilized in its plot about ballerinas elements from the legend on which
Tchaikovsky’s famous ballet is based. Noah
(2014) infused non-Biblical legends into the Biblical account of the Great
Flood.
Mother! begins
with a character named Him (Javier Bardem) handling some kind of large crystal.
The structure that Him is in changes from a burnt-out shell to a large house
standing alone in a field surrounded by a forest. Then Mother (Jennifer
Lawrence), a beautiful young woman, wakes up seeking Him, her older husband.
Mother is doing the renovation work on the house’s interior while Him, a noted
poet who lost his previous wife in a fire, seeks to overcome writer’s block. As
Mother does her work in the house, she notices that a rhythmic sound like that
of a beating heart seems to come from inside the walls of the house, and from
time to time blood oozes from various orifices.
Despite these odd occurrences, the couple’s life is
tranquil. This tranquility is shattered, however, when an obnoxious pair, Man
(Ed Harris) and Woman (Michelle Pfeiffer)—yes, all the characters’ names are
like this—arrive at the house and are invited to stay by Him, who likes their
expressed admiration for his work, though Mother dislikes their pesky
questioning of her childlessness. Man, who arrives a day before Woman, appears
to have a lung disorder and a rib injury. (Harris and Pfeiffer seem to be
having great fun devouring the scenery during their time on screen.)
So far the movie may seem reminiscent of Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and The Shining (1980) or Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
and various plays by Harold Pinter. Lawrence seems loving and vulnerable like
Mia Farrow in Baby, and Harris and
Pfeiffer remind one of Sidney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon as Rosemary’s neighbors.
Javier Bardem bears a strong physical resemblance to John Cassavetes, who
played Rosemary’s husband, and who could forget that the Jack Nicholson
character in The Shining suffered
from writer’s block?
Yet neither the devil nor an ax murderer makes an appearance
in Aronofsky’s movie, at this point. Instead of the works mentioned above, a different
story is evoked when the sons of Man and Woman come to the house and commence
raising all kinds of Cain about who will inherit what when Man dies. The
brothers fight, and Oldest Son (Domhnall Gleeson) kills Younger Brother (Brian
Gleeson). Later at the house a quiet memorial service is held, which turns into
a raucous “Irish-style” wake similar to that in John Ford’s The Last Hurrah (1958) as more and more
people arrive. Eventually, an outraged Mother kicks the whole crowd out and
berates her husband for focusing on his own pleasure and ignoring her. But then
the two have sex.
The next morning Mother realizes that she has miraculously
become pregnant—and an advanced pregnancy at that. Him is inspired by the news
and almost instantaneously announces that he has written his masterpiece and
that it has been published to great acclaim. (Fairy tales often compress time.)
At this point the film provides a savage satire of celebrity
culture--among other things. More and more people migrate into the house to
meet the creator of this great document. There is no wall—big, beautiful, or
otherwise—to stop them, and soon the house is populated far beyond its
capacity. People start destroying it. Bacchanals, violence, and weird religious
rituals take place—all memorably, though shockingly, “choreographed” by
Aronofsky. The arrival of the police and the military simply adds to the chaos.
The situation has devolved from festive scenes reminiscent of paintings by the
Bruegels to hellish visions reminiscent of paintings by Hieronymus Bosch. Film
fans also may be reminded of those orgiastic scenes in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments that take place
when Moses is absent.
While all this repulsive activity is occurring, Mother goes
into labor. She gives birth to a son, whom the crowd demands be delivered to
them. She refuses, but when she falls asleep, Him offers his son to the crowd.
When Mother awakes and discovers this, she goes into the basement and decides
to really make things as hot as hell by releasing (fossil) fuel oil from a tank
and setting it ablaze. A conflagration follows . . . but a crystal survives.
Lawrence is appealing in her role, and the supporting
performances are fine. Admirable, too, is the quality of the cinematography.
Aronofsky skillfully maintains an atmosphere of anxiety, just short of suspense—shot
through with a few tender moments and, more frequently, dark humor—for most of
the film, but the last part goes over the top with, as mentioned, that
protracted, brilliantly choreographed, but shocking orgy of destruction and
degeneracy. And what about the allegory mentioned at the beginning of this
review? Is it crystal clear?
Aronofsky’s allegory involves what has been called the “Gaia
hypothesis.” The Gaia hypothesis is the view held by many environmentalists
that the planet where we dwell is a living organism itself with its various
systems interacting as flesh, blood, bone, and brain do in the human body. As
Aldo Leopold, a noted environmentalist, put it: “It is at least not impossible
to regard the earth’s parts . . . as organs or parts of organs of a coordinated
whole . . .. And if we could see this whole . . .. we would have all the
attributes of a living thing . . ..” This idea of the Earth as an integrated whole,
a living being, has a long tradition. In Greek myth Gaia was the primal goddess
personifying the Earth, the animating spirit of its systems: Mother
Nature/Earth Mother.
Thus, Mother and the house that she cares for in the film. But
Earth’s systems in balance can be upset by human forces, such as
overpopulation, violence, the culture of consumption and celebrity, and the
global warming spawned by use of fossil fuel. To consider humanity’s role over
time, Aronofsky puts the Gaia hypothesis into a compressed, whacked-out version
of Biblical history in contemporary dress—from Genesis and Exodus to the
Gospels to the Apocalypse.
Mrs. Malaprop, the famously befuddled character in Richard
Sheridan’s 1775 play The Rivals, thought
that an allegory was a creature on the banks of the Nile. What should we think
of Aronofsky’s cinematic creation?
Well, it’s godawful. (That doesn’t mean it’s a bad movie.)
