Mother!

Darren Aronofsky is a name prominent for daring, provocative, raw and relentless motion picture outputs. Many of his works have garnered critical acclaim for its hard-hitting watching experience with heavy emotional impacts.

Mother! is a biblical allegory stringed together with plucks of chapters from Book of Genesis, told through a couple's life. This film depends entirely on the storylines featured in the Bible. When you put on that spectacle, you could clearly see the correlation between the happenings here and the holy anecdotes. Many revelations would surprise! Ed Harris represents man or Adam, Michelle Pfeiffer stands for woman or Eve, Domhnall Gleeson is Cain, Brian Gleeson as Abel and the newborn baby is Jesus. Most importantly, Javier Bardem, the only character name with a capital letter is Him or God and Jennifer Lawrence symbolizes mother nature.

The story revolves around God's attempt to create mankind. Man turning ugly over time and God resurrecting mother nature again and again after the 'great flood' in the form of house fire that destroys the race shapes the story circle. As you watch, you'll notice the way the filmmaker has bent the ancient tales into a modern narrative is brilliant! Crystal being the forbidden fruit located in a room upstairs alike the height of a tree, the house being Garden of Eden and baby being sacrificed plus consumed as bread and wine alike Jesus' crucifixion are examples.

Nonetheless, the most crucial question to ask here is, does the film stand and function on its own without the biblical connection? Would audiences without the holy book knowledge be able to enjoy or fathom the unfolding events, let alone the whole film? A definite no, with a partial yes as the beginning fire accident has already hinted you that this is not a story taking place on human realistic mode. Still, none of the incidents would make any sense to an individual watching it simply through the primary storyline. This renders the plot one-dimensional. The entire show would be guests after guests arriving to the house causing problems, and our protagonist simply taking it in. This would only make sense when the character is coupled with its biblical depiction; ever-giving patient mother nature who has to contain the plentiful human beings God has engendered since Adam and Eve from the latter's ribs. But, how are we to root for a passive main character for majority of the runtime? The Second Act is a horrendous headache-inducing chaotic mess with super random advents in increasing numbers which got repetitious, unnecessary and unbearable! One could say it's such to put us in the hero's shoes, but there are better methods to do so without torturing the audiences!

To compare, in 2010, director Mani Ratnam made a movie entitled Raavanan. It was based on the crux of Ramayana, integrated into contemporary storytelling. The primary storyline functioned on its own without dependency towards the folklore allegory. Audiences who do not have mastery over the mythos still received a picture with story, plot, characters, theme and universe that were valid. The mythological allegory was a bonus spine to it, that's all.

Technicality wise, Matthew Libatique's cinematography filled the screen with beautiful moving stills! However, the handheld shots tracking individuals moving around can be also, headache-inducing at many parts. Computer graphics done to reverse the effect of burnt house to prior state was gorgeous!