Tropic Sprockets / mother!

From the inimitable Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Black Swan) comes “mother!” a gutsy, propulsive and very sinister fantasy about a woman pushed to the edge. The filmmaker, whose sly lurking camera movements owe a debt to Roman Polanski also has a love of symbolism that points to the fiction of Isaac Singer. However you feel about Aronofsky, two things are crystal clear: his films are full of mystery and impact and they never fail to provoke.

In this outing from the auteur, mother (Jennifer Lawrence) lives in an idyllic country house with Him (Javier Bardem), a once famous poet. Everything is calm until there is a strange knock at the door. Strange given the fact that the serene couple never receives visitors.

Lo and behold, here is an unnamed frail Man (Ed Harris) who briefly explains that he assumed the house was a B&B. Because the fellow is in ill health, as his vomiting indicates, Javier urges him to stay the night and the man readily agrees. The next day there is another knock. This time it is a woman (Michelle Pffeiffer), the sick man’s wife. She barges right in as if mother did not exist. Mother is in shocked disbelief.

Trying her best, mother focuses on laundry only to have woman criticize her supposed lack of power in the bedroom. 

Feeling nauseous, mother stumbles upstairs only to find the man and his wife having sex on the sofa. Mother goes to Him’s study, discovering in horror that man and woman went into the study and accidentally shattered Him’s favorite crystal rock.

Then man’s sons show up at the house. They are testily fighting about their father’s Last Will.

 What follows has to be seen to be believed, and that is no exaggeration.

Like Aronofsky’s previous “Black Swan” the creeping rhythm of the camera is superb and quite scary. Like Polanski, there are jolting and sudden images of nightmarish faces and then just as suddenly they are gone. The weaving dance of Aronofsky’s camera is everything and it is the most terrifying and visceral element in this film. 

The pacing is also first rate. The director gives us ample time to ponder circumstances and become apprehensive. A smear of deep gray putty can either be proof of primordial ooze or the mark of Satan. The definitions are up to the viewer depending on your own frame of reference. For instance, what exactly is that yellow medicine? Yet it is also true that this film goes to great length to repeat  its symbols. That being said, the narrative shines when it just gives a flash of something eerie or repulsive and just lets it go, never to be seen again, as in a lascivious and mocking pair of neon green thongs or an upsetting and sad fetus getting sucked in the toilet leaving a snake’s trail of blood.

While this film is certainly not for everyone, it has an uncompromising  energy that is almost “Exorcist” like in its dare and provocation. Like many of Aronofsky’s other films this one builds to a virtuousic crescendo that almost goes to the limits of visual space and human emotion. Pictorially, this film pays great tribute to both Hieronymus Bosch and the nightmares of Francisco Goya, while making a fine visual cousin to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper.

No matter one’s point of view, “mother” is beyond doubt impactful and will not fail to provoke discussion. Some will get something from it, while others will no doubt chastise the film with hissing disapproval. 

Yet in showing such mania with transgressive abandon, “mother!” says volumes about our era. In a divisive time of political morality and escapist entertainment, Aronofsky’s apocalypse proves a thoughtful if upsetting tonic forcing us to verbalize. The director’s imagery all but demands it.