In the vein of his acclaimed film Black Swan (2010), Mother! Will nevertheless confound and bore those who do not know the director's body of work. As the film derives to complete mayhem, Aronofsky perfectly knows the absurdity of the plot lets most amateurs nowhere to hold onto. He expects the criticism of "pretentiousness". We can compare this view of things to The Tree of Life (2011), just to cite a recent example. However, far from me, the idea of putting Mother! On the same level as Terrence Malick's masterpiece. These are two films where the plot can't be understood without comprehension of the director's intention.
Mother starts slowly. The horror/supernatural is present but hidden from the viewer's eyes. Only through Jennifer Lawrence's incredible performance, can we detect something isn't right in the tranquil existence. Something is supernatural. In Lawrence's performance, there is both the worry of the stranger through the eyes of a neglected wife and the worry of the supernatural through the eyes of a mystical human being. This grows more and more obvious as we witness Mother's ability to feel the house's heartbeat (when she touches the walls).
Aronofsky to mixes opposite genres of horror - the subtle kind of horror I talked about earlier to a feverish horror - first misleads the viewer, objects first seen as psychological trigger points disappear for most of the film before becoming full-fledged mystical artifacts. The same goes for events and certain characters which progressively seem to adopt a quasi-religious role.
As a matter a fact, as noted by practically everyone, there is a lot of allegories to religion, love, life, and even some to politics. One, for example, is the prophet embodied by Javier Bardem. The film has tackled an impressive amount of themes. Some will already be dizzy midway through.
Another trick, of Aranofsky's, is to play temporality. There is the temporality of Mother and the temporality of the others. Initially hinted at the beginning by the "alarm clock" scene, characters don't live on the same schedule. Exponentially, the two timelines estrange from each other to create chaos and mayhem only perceptible by the protagonist, Mother.
Lastly, the camera, one of the most important elements in the mix of horror genres. Following Mother closely, at the start, with lots of close-ups and tracking shots, it progressively detaches from the protagonist to show us a crowd or to isolate the characters.
In this review, if I focused on the great elements of Mother! Note that I have a few reservations concerning characters and the way some turning points are brought up. I can not go into details without spoiling, unfortunately. I would also like to warn viewers who aren't into formalism because I'm disappointed to read that so many felt that this film was pretentious.
Mother starts slowly. The horror/supernatural is present but hidden from the viewer's eyes. Only through Jennifer Lawrence's incredible performance, can we detect something isn't right in the tranquil existence. Something is supernatural. In Lawrence's performance, there is both the worry of the stranger through the eyes of a neglected wife and the worry of the supernatural through the eyes of a mystical human being. This grows more and more obvious as we witness Mother's ability to feel the house's heartbeat (when she touches the walls).
Aronofsky to mixes opposite genres of horror - the subtle kind of horror I talked about earlier to a feverish horror - first misleads the viewer, objects first seen as psychological trigger points disappear for most of the film before becoming full-fledged mystical artifacts. The same goes for events and certain characters which progressively seem to adopt a quasi-religious role.
As a matter a fact, as noted by practically everyone, there is a lot of allegories to religion, love, life, and even some to politics. One, for example, is the prophet embodied by Javier Bardem. The film has tackled an impressive amount of themes. Some will already be dizzy midway through.
Another trick, of Aranofsky's, is to play temporality. There is the temporality of Mother and the temporality of the others. Initially hinted at the beginning by the "alarm clock" scene, characters don't live on the same schedule. Exponentially, the two timelines estrange from each other to create chaos and mayhem only perceptible by the protagonist, Mother.
Lastly, the camera, one of the most important elements in the mix of horror genres. Following Mother closely, at the start, with lots of close-ups and tracking shots, it progressively detaches from the protagonist to show us a crowd or to isolate the characters.
In this review, if I focused on the great elements of Mother! Note that I have a few reservations concerning characters and the way some turning points are brought up. I can not go into details without spoiling, unfortunately. I would also like to warn viewers who aren't into formalism because I'm disappointed to read that so many felt that this film was pretentious.