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Author Topic: mother!  (Read 11444 times)

DarkeningHumour

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Re: mother!
« Reply #40 on: October 03, 2017, 03:55:16 AM »
I don't know what that is but I am sure it makes sense.

Have you watched the movie yet 'noff?
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DarkeningHumour

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Re: mother!
« Reply #41 on: October 03, 2017, 07:58:39 AM »
You've got me convinced aewade90! I'm sure I would hate this now. :)

You're not going to watch it then?

@aewade: I think your reading of the movie is too closed. It is completely fair to read it that way, but as I read you I get the feeling your saying that Aronofsky's CINECAST! you to the public is the only thing in the movie. You don't ackowledge the other possible interpretations at all, which is a bit too extreme. I mean, are you that sure the only intent of the film is to tell you to bugger off? Don't you see other messages in there that are worth comenting on or making a movie about?

@AGB: Do characters need to be strongly built when 90% of the impetus for the movie is a metaphor? Maybe Mother's character doesn't make sense, but she's straight out of the Bible, and I am not sure Aronofsky believes that thing makes much sense either. She's not a character as much as a representation in service of a particular message. Maybe the ending of the movie is a criticism of the sickly Christian dogma of worship and self-sacrifice.
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Junior

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Re: mother!
« Reply #42 on: October 03, 2017, 10:21:29 AM »
I do.


I don't see how your review is a response to anything I wrote. All you do is explain why the allegory/metaphorical narrative is important to you in detail. You don't ever truly respond to the idea that the characters are 100% at the service of this allegory, which robs them of all logic or actual depth which is what I assert.

Then again, I don't think we are even on this same page:

Mother! gets much more metaphorical, but I think the central relationship still works and feels quite real, mostly.

I don't feel I know a single person who would agree with this statement. That is not a joke, that is not exaggeration. The relationship doesn't feel real at all. It feels so very heightened for the purpose of the plot. 


I guess my problem with your continued incredulity is that you seem to be ignoring the actual things that people are saying. Like, I get it, you think the film is vapid. But I don't see you tracking anything anybody is saying about the film except to dismiss it outright. It feels like you're standing in an apple orchard, looking for something to eat and unwilling to reach up and grab a snack.

I didn't call you or DH out in my review at all. If you read my following comments, it's not just the reviews I've read on this forum but elsewhere as well. It feels like you're suggesting the only way anyone can discuss their problems with the movie is in response to the raves already posted beforehand.

In other words, maybe you're projecting onto me that I am looking for something to eat. Maybe I just like strolling through apple orchards. Maybe I like to buy apples that were already picked and washed.

My review isn't a response to anything you wrote. I wrote it before you wrote anything. I'm pretty sure I ain't a time traveler, don't know if you are or not. What my review is, however, is an explanation for the various layers I saw in the film and how they interacted from my understanding. One of those layers is the kind of plot level stuff with the artist and his muse/enabler, in which I wrote about how it seemed to me like a pretty believable thing, even if it is heightened to absurd levels.

Hi, I'm a single person who would agree with the statement I made. Nice to meet you.

I don't think you really have to do anything in your responses. I just think it's kind of disingenuous of you to state that the idea that anybody would take the film seriously is ridiculous. Whether you intended it or not, it denigrates anybody who does take the film seriously to the level of idiots grasping at straws. That's where I have problems with what you wrote. If you wanna say, "I didn't get a single thing out of this film," have a blast. If you wanna say, "I don't understand how anybody can get anything out of this film" when there's already several examples of people doing that (and doing it differently at that!), it feels like a dismissal of us as people, critics, and fellow forumites.
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Will

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Re: mother!
« Reply #43 on: October 03, 2017, 04:41:04 PM »
People project ideas on films they love all the time. Art isn't a thing you can just project ideas on because you feel like. You have to have evidence from the work of art that supports your interpretation. My comment is explicitly about that. Your review only seems to congratulate the film for making an allegory instead of actually investigating what that allegory is about or how it works.

I still stand by the basic idea of my sentence. If your main complaint is if I could have wrote it in a more polite way, maybe I could've figured a better way. But I felt then and a bit now that it would filter out the honesty of my reaction.

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Hi, I'm a single person who would agree with the statement I made. Nice to meet you.

There's so much emotional abuse in the relationship and the mother shows that she's willing to fight back at so many times. Then incredibly illogical things happen. She doesn't escape or go with her husband. Not because she doesn't want to, she can't, because this about an allegory, not her characterization. She wants to voice her problems with her husband (and does), but then decides to have sex with him instead, forgetting everything that came before because this is about an allegory, not her characterization. He cares about her and her problems with him except when he doesn't... because this is about an allegory, not his characterization. He only stops caring for her when it's convenient for the allegory. Nothing about his character makes any sense. Why does he get mad when the crystal breaks when the couple has been blatantly mistreating his wife in front of him the entire time? Because the crystal is a more important macguffin in the allegory, not his wife.

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Hi, I'm a single person who would agree with the statement I made. Nice to meet you.

Let's take it at a purely relationship level:

If the film is all about a woman suffering the erratic abuse of her husband, why is she given any agency at all? Where's the commentary on these kind of relationships? Why isn't she given any scene of escape? Why doesn't she actually physically fight back?

I hate to answer my own questions, but I don't see any other answers than "because that doesn't fit into the allegory". So we are forced to watch a woman being neglected, emotionally and physically abused all in service of this important allegory. I don't see any value in a film ONLY having an allegory, especially if it must require the sacrifice of character to get to it.

SPIRITED AWAY is an allegory for the modernization of Japan. Many crazy things happen, but all of them makes sense to the character and the logic of that film's universe. They're all justified. I didn't feel the justification here. All I see you doing is congratulating the movie for having an allegory, but an allegory has to work in tandem with other parts of the narrative to actually have significant cultural value.

If you don't want to have a conversation, don't assume that I didn't read your review when I wrote mine. Yes, it's not a response to my comment. If you knew that, then why did you link me to your review saying "I do" to a request of a response to a particular part of my comment?

saltine

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Re: mother!
« Reply #44 on: October 03, 2017, 05:47:36 PM »
Hey, guys, stepping in here to say keep it civil. I'm reading and loving the comments when they are about the film and responses to the film. Let's continue in that vein, please. 

ALSO, please don't let this digress into that "what is art" dead horse thread. That's just boring.
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DarkeningHumour

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Re: mother!
« Reply #45 on: October 03, 2017, 05:52:00 PM »
What is art?
Maybe define it
Maybe refine it
Some more

bam bam barabam babababam...
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saltine

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Re: mother!
« Reply #46 on: October 03, 2017, 05:53:57 PM »
OK, I'm bored.
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DarkeningHumour

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Re: mother!
« Reply #47 on: October 03, 2017, 05:58:02 PM »
Sorry, I couldn't fine a rhyme about not doing it.
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aewade90

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Re: mother!
« Reply #48 on: October 03, 2017, 07:21:56 PM »

@aewade: I think your reading of the movie is too closed. It is completely fair to read it that way, but as I read you I get the feeling your saying that Aronofsky's CINECAST! you to the public is the only thing in the movie. You don't ackowledge the other possible interpretations at all, which is a bit too extreme. I mean, are you that sure the only intent of the film is to tell you to bugger off? Don't you see other messages in there that are worth comenting on or making a movie about?


It's not that I don't acknowledge them - as mentioned I do believe it's Aronofsky's most interpretative work - but it just comes across so strongly that is plows through any other metaphors, to me. The way that Aronofsky has been positioned within external media and the way that he himself has participated in that discourse makes it really hard for me to see it any other way. That's not to say that for example the biblical positioning of the text isn't invalid, but that intersects with the personal-destroyed-art reading to a fault. Aronofsky's "CINECAST! you" isn't the only thing, but to me, it was the loudest and most resounding.

Will

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Re: mother!
« Reply #49 on: October 03, 2017, 07:49:58 PM »
Hey, guys, stepping in here to say keep it civil.

Point me to where I'm being uncivil, please.

 

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