Regie:
Darren AronofskyDrehbuch:
Darren AronofskyKamera:
Matthew LibatiqueBesetzung:
Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer, Domhnall Gleeson, Brian Gleeson, Jovan Adepo, Raphael Grosz-Harvey, Andreas Apergis (mehr)Streaming (5)
Inhalte(1)
Die Beziehung eines Paares wird auf eine harte Probe gestellt, als ungebetene Gäste in ihr Haus kommen und den friedvollen Alltag stören. Regisseur und Drehbuchautor Darren Aronofsky („Black Swan", „Requiem for a Dream") vereint in mother! Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris und Michelle Pfeiffer in den Hauptrollen und schuf einen fesselnden Psycho-Thriller über Liebe, Hingabe und Aufopferung. (Paramount Pictures Germany)
(mehr)Kritiken (14)
Ein bewundernswertes Vorhaben des Autors, einen starken Gedanken auszusprechen, der zu abstrakt realisiert wurde. Und warum eigentlich nicht? Die Konzentration auf die Gefühle der Hauptfigur in der ersten Filmhälfte ist so formal sorgfältig und psychologisch spannend, wie es nur wenige Regisseure können. Aronofsky weiß das, deswegen hat er den Mut zu einem derartigen Ausrutscher in der zweiten Hälfte. Wie ein Maler, der spontan einen Pinselstrich macht und seine auf den ersten Blick störende Linie zum Schluss zu einem einzigartigen Wert des Gesamtwerkes wird. Ich akzeptiere das, schätze es und genieße lustvoll den Eindruck vom Ende des Films.
()
Es soll jedoch Regisseure geben, bei denen es sich lohnt, ihre misslungenen Filme anzuschauen. Darin hat Aronofsky Glück, denn sein letzter erfolgreicher Film war The Wrestler - Ruhm, Liebe, Schmerz. Mother! (Um es eben so auszudrücken und nicht zu beleidigen) ist eine schrecklich einfache Geschichte, die wir mit ein paar Lehrbuchklischees auszudrücken vermögen. Darren ist es gelungen, sie mit molligen und geschwülstigen vaginal-biblischen Symbolen zu verkleiden, was all diesen B-filmhaften Repliken den Ausdruck einer nahezu kosmischen Gültigkeit verleiht. Und weil die erste Hälfte harmlos wirkt und uns nirgendwohin führt - außerdem wird hier stets eine und dieselbe Figur wiederholt -, folgt zum Schluss eine delirische Reise durch die Geschichte der Gewalt und den Verlauf der Religiosität für Anfänger. Dieser Regisseur fühlt sich offensichtlich wie ein virtuoser Poet, jedoch in Wirklichkeit ist er nur ein hartnäckiger Stuckateur und Handwerker. Und sein Paradiespavillon fällt ihm unter seinen Händen auseinander. Diesmal irritiert hier Jennifer Lawrence nicht. Sie begibt sich voll und ganz in die Hände eines Puppenspielers, der selbst keine allzu große Ahnung hat, warum sich ihm all die Fäden ineinander verweben und wohin sie tatsächlich führen. Eine Ode an das Schicksal einer Frau, Mutter, einer lebensspendenden Person? Aber nein, es ist so eine Art kleiner The Fountain der Selbstbeschimpfung. Oh Weh.
()
Bullshit. Aber ja, man kann es auf subtile und lakonische Weise ausdrücken, dass der Film völlig überflüssig ist. Wofür also der eine Punkt? Für den kleinen Film im Film mit Michelle. Wir hatten sie schon lange nicht mehr in der Rolle der frechen MILF (angeblich der biblischen Eva) gesehen, was an sich schon ein toller Auftritt war, trotz allem und all ihrer Filmkollegen.
()
Ich war auf den nichttraditionellen Horror sehr gespannt, wo ihm doch solche Widersprüchlichkeiten vorausgingen und der Film den Zerfall der Beziehung zwischen Regisseur und Hauptdarstellerin verschuldete. Die erste halbe Stunde hielt mich noch in unklarer Spannung und Vorahnung von etwas Schrecklichem und strahlte noch eine recht anständige Atmosphäre aus. In der zweiten Hälfte des Filmes aber versank er in einem totalen Sumpf, und der Schluss war mir buchstäblich zuwider. Ich denke, dass jeder frischgebackene Vater oder jede junge Mutter vom Ende angewidert sein müssen. Ich habe nichts gegen jegliche filmische Mittel, seien sie schockierend oder kontrovers, aber ich habe ich den Eindruck, als handele es sich um peinlichen Selbstzweck.
()
This is what happens when a self-centered artist succumbs to ideas of their own exceptionalism.
()
Mother! is a very dark comedy of morals that degenerates into a surreal apocalyptic horror flick. First through hints and then increasingly explicitly, Aronofsky’s film makes it clear that we are not watching a realistic story. The idea that it will be a variation on Repulsion (1965) or Rosemary's Baby (1968), i.e. a domestic horror movie about a paranoid female protagonist, holds together for roughly the first hour. Then the film definitively abandons the moral, logical and any other norms that apply in our current world. The characters’ actions can no longer be explained based on any psychological parameter, there are no rationally legitimate relationships between events, and the laws of physics cease to apply. The subtext becomes the main text and it is impossible to come to an interpretation that is anything other than allegorical, unlike the above-mentioned Roman Polanski films, which until the end keep us in a state of uncertainty as to whether we are only watching the personified fragments of the protagonist’s disturbed mind. In attempting to come to a reading that is more grounded in reality, the film’s structure would collapse. However, Mother! does not base its narrative on uncertainty and unanswered questions. Nor does it try to encourage viewers to think about what has been left unsaid. As is his habit, Aronofsky instead shamelessly shoves his “big ideas” is our faces. Watching the film is an uncomfortable experience not because we would be groping for the message that it is conveying, but because we know (and see) more than we want. Sometimes it is necessary to attack all of the senses. Thanks to our physical attachment to the main character (the camera practically never wavers from her point of view), we sympathise with her, experience her physical suffering and understand both her growing frustration and her final act of defiance. In most of his films, Aronofsky works with a similarly aggressive visual style, for which he is often ranked among the biggest posers of contemporary American cinema, but for the first time in mother!, he clearly found appropriate material on which to use it. We can see the choice of the “story of all stories” as the basis for the narrative as a manifestation of a lack of judgment. However, we can also see it as a middle finger raised at critics who had previously blamed Aronofsky for the efforts of numerous midcult artists to address the problems of the entire universe with trite brevity. Mother! goes back to the beginning of life on Earth and, at the same time, ostentatiously flaunts its own banality. It doesn’t pretend to be high-brow art that we should long contemplate. A bit in the spirit of the “theatre of cruelty”, it is rather a naked attempt to draw attention, by any available means of expression, to the crisis in which humanity has found itself due to unjust social conditions and people’s selfishness, disinterest, hypocrisy, dismissiveness and complacency. It is a desperate and, in its ingenuousness, extraordinarily authentic cry, not a genial request. Perhaps you will find it offensive, or maybe you’ll laugh at it or it will make you sick, but it if doesn’t leave you indifferent, it has served its purpose. 90%
()
(weniger)
(mehr)
An excellently driven absurd thriller that works both as a portrait of an unhealthy relationship, as well as a parable of the relationship of humankind and the figure of the mother or Planet Earth. The second half, unfortunately, drowns into biblical allegories that are literally hair-pulling so even a moron would understand them, which radically affects the thought-provoking aspect. Yeah, God is a smug douchebag, the Scriptures are misinterpreted nonsense, poor life-giving Mother Earth, and humans are idiots… but what else? In the details and in the conclusion, that’s effective, but the impression of a smart film that has something to say vanishes. That said, the intention is commendable, sure. 7/10
()
It was abstract as The Fountain but way more minimalistic. The music creates the tension which is rather distressing and disgusting. On the other hand, you will not understand a single character because of the film’s abstractness and eccentricity. All the actors did a great job but it doesn’t matter because you don’t understand the reason for their emotions. The first half has no logic and the second half is rather brutal. If you forget about the fact that Javier Bardem is actually the only living person in the film, it becomes great. But the director Darren Aronofsky didn’t make it easy for the viewers so you leave the cinema feeling it was one big madness with no logic, which will be confirmed by the final disgusting scenes which did nothing to me at all.
()
Darren Aronofsky is a director who rarely suits me with his work, he makes a lot of controversial films for his audience, but with this one he absolutely blew me away and proved that he has balls. Mother! is an acting tour-de-force of great actors: an excellent Jennifer Lawrence, who reaches the bottom of her acting abilities and gives an Oscar-winning performance, the same can be said about Javier Bardem, and the participation of Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer is very good, a dream casting for a horror-thriller. The premise is very interesting and I can say this is a great nightmare that I guess nobody would like to experience. The romantic idyll of a happy couple in a beautiful big house starts to be disturbed by uninvited guests, which start to increase and towards the end the house literally becomes a battleground! The film has a very stiffing and uncomfortable atmosphere, for the first time in a long time I was really anxious to the point of being uncomfortable while watching it. The last half hour escalates to the point where my mind was boggled by all the things the director dared to show, and at times he was almost explicitly rude to the audience, girls will definitely turn closed their eyes and the hardened viewers will "snort". During the final twist a lot of people in the cinema said “What the Fuck!" A lot of people may get upset, I personally was very surprised by something so original and strangely interesting. A gritty paranoid, hallucinogenic, intelligent and atmospheric thriller, the likes of which hasn't been seen in the last few years. The finale is the kind of WTF freakout that I want to repeat immediately. The movie will definitely divide audiences into two groups: very satisfied and very angry viewers; I belong to the former. 85%.
()
In stronger moments, the intensity of Black Swan or the unpleasantness and suggestiveness deeply ingrained under the skin of Requiem for a Dream are not lacking. However, whatever Darren Aronofsky wanted to say, all the allegory gets lost in an endless loop. The unsuccessful attempt to protect one's own privacy becomes so irritating after a while that with every new character, I just shook my head with increasing emphasis. The way the whole thing stagnates in the last act is so transparent, unnecessary, and (worst of all) lazily written that I just checked off the obligatory biblical references and became more and more frustrated with how Jennifer Lawrence gives absolutely brilliant performances, but it is all essentially in vain. It scares me that someone who was able to develop a simple chain of thoughts into the masterpiece named The Fountain a decade earlier now gives birth to an idea that obviously wants to flourish on multiple levels, then only lets it flow in just one. Noah may have been a disappointment, but Mother! is the boundary between missing the mark and losing yourself.
()
Mother! is a film that in a way made me think again about how I should actually approach the evaluation of works of cinema and how to approach this one in particular. I could be a principled objective reviewer who doesn't care who works on a film, what they've done before, or how their outlook on life and artistic sensibilities affect me, then I'd follow the plot without emotion, trying to uncover the general processes I've consciously or subconsciously automated while watching films, and Mother! would have struck me as a big-budget creation that, in pursuit of a thoughtful philosophical point, cheaply resorts to parroting various biblical themes on which it merely hangs its model story. But I can also be a highly subjective reviewer who has both a good understanding of general narrative practices and an opinion of the actors and the director, which, if negative, can affect the experience of the film to such an extent that it’s impossible to get past being pissed off at the artistic expression of the filmmaker and enjoy the film subjectively. Or I can be a subjective viewer who doesn’t give a crap about the artistic views of the creators, and even though the film just parrots big themes, its portrayal simply draws me in and, if nothing else, shows me once again how powerfully the medium of film can communicate and create at least the illusion of big authorial ideas. Mother! is a controversial and far from perfect movie that has understandably divided the audience and raises the question of how much one is able to empathise with the narrative and accept its expression. I respect all options (a hundred people are a tribute to a hundred audience tastes), I chose mine, and it is evident from this really difficult review. 85%
()
I was pretty bored in the first half of the film. All in all, it irritated me rather than kept me on the edge of my seat. I couldn't help feeling like I was watching an invasion of barbarians into the household of normal, adaptable citizens. I kept waiting for the big twist at the end, but to my surprise, the film ended in a completely predictable way.
()
Darren Aronofsky got the most out of his actors, but I don't think he got the most out of himself. This is an allegory that could have been made shorter, basically as an exercise, but he opted for two hours, which can be quite exhausting. Yes, it can make you feel depressed, which is indicative of certain qualities, but you may also want to scream while watching the film, as it is often shallow in its tone, which it tries to obscure through its artistry.
()
An abstract psychotic story that deeply affected me. The initial idyll of partnership starts to be disrupted by uninvited guests, whose number keeps growing until it reaches a horrific apocalypse. The main character was very relatable to me because I feel the same way about some of the visits. This movie made me reflect on our occasionally twisted world, and I won't easily forget it.
()
Werbung