mother!: what the duck?

21st January, 2018.

No, really, I’m a duck … !

Yeah … quack, quack … !

Ahem … !

Just in case you hadn’t realised … ?

That’s me in that introduction.

Fresh off of tonight’s movie action.

~≈§≈~



Let me briefly introduce myself, here, if I can … ?

My name’s Paul: also known — for various reasons — as Nik Nak.

I’m — currently — working in a call centre: but have worked in  pubs, fast food gaffs, toyshops … and ran pub quizzes.

I’ve also blogged about all and sundry: for the past decade.

Including about TV shows I’ve watched.

And movies.   I like the occasional movie.

It’s a movie that I’ve watched, tonight.

The 2017 film, mother!: written and directed by Darren Aronovsky.

Something I’d fancied seeing, as two previous Aronovsky films — π and Black Swan — had mildly impressed me.

And?

Strange … ?

~≈§≈~

mother! is set in a house in an isolated glade: owned by an unnamed poet — only referred to as Him, played by Javier Bardem — that’s been burnt down by a fire.

And being reconstructed by his equally unnamed wife — referred to as mother, and played by Jennifer Lawrence — who’s throughly enjoying the quiet life.

Until one day … ?

Their lives are interrupted by uninvited guests.

A dying, equalling unnamed, doctor — ‘Man’, played by Ed Harris — and his wife, ‘Woman,’ Michelle Pfeiffer.

Which is where …

Things …

Get … 

Disjointed … 

And mother’s life is irreparably changed … 

~≈§≈~

Now … 

Strange … ?

Strange is the word.

Or one word, certainly.

The other one I’d use?

Is ‘dream-like.’

Aronovsky has written and directed mother! so that it comes across with the disjointedness of a waking dream, with jumps from one line to another, Him disappearing from one door to come in at another, and discussions and conversations taking different directions: seemingly at random, and seemingly with no apparent cause.

mother get’s abruptly pregnant, for example: immediately after after a tastefully rough bedroom scene.

Him writing a poem which never, seemingly, leaves the house …  only for his publisher to phone to say how much she liked it.

Leaving mother very confused: as this is seconds after she’s given her opinion of it.

Confusing?

Well made?

The answer’s got to be yes: to both questions.

~≈§≈~

Now … 

You’re possibly saying “Paul, what did you think of mother! … ?”

Oh, that’s a tough one.

Frankly?

That really is tough … 

Right now, I don’t know that I could tell you I liked it.

It is very well made: with — possibly — a lot of depth, meaning, and philosophy there, if you chose to look for it.

But I think it’s a film I found mildly confusing.

Not that I mind confusing, occasionally.   I’m a fan of 1960s version of The Prisoner, which some will tell you is incredibly confusing.

And of Denis Potter’s The Singing Detective: which some will tell you is just as confusing.

Both of which?   Both of which I found straight-forward, compared to mother!: even though both The Prisoner and mother! — in their final scenes — loop back around to their respective starts, after convoluted finales.

Personally?

mother!’s only getting two stars from me.

It’s a well crafted movie: and one that is, with its dreamlike logic, worth watching at least once.

You might take to it.

But, ultimately?

mother! wasn’t for me.

mother!
★★☆☆

π: Blimey … !

You know, I can honestly say that it’s not that often I’ve seen a Darren Aronofsky film.

Honestly.

I think the last one was the thoroughly enjoyable, Natalie Portman vehicle, Black Swan.

So his work is something I’ve not seen a lot of, to be frank.

Until last night, that is.

Last night … ?   Last night, I managed to rent π* from the iTunes Store.

I don’t know if you’ve seen i: but I came away rather impressed … 

~≈Â≈~

π follows the day to day life of Max Cohen, played by Sean Gullette.   Max is an obsessive number theorist who suffers some incredibly painful headaches, in between bouts of work on his theory that patterns can be observed in unexpected places: his particular hobby-horse is trying to find the patterns in the sheer chaos of the rise and fall of the Stock Market.

Until one day, he finds his purpose built server, Euclid, crashing, after picking out a seemingly random 216 digit number.

With one stock market prediction at a very low, nonsensical, value.

It’s only when, the next day, he finds that prediction is bang on the literal money, that he consults an old Maths mentor, Sol — Mark Margolis — who advises Max of two things.   That the number could well be meaningless.

And that he — Max — should take a break.

Something Max ignores: especially when he mets a young Hasidic Jew called Lenny, who tell hims a little of the ancient number searches involved in the ancient branch of Jewish mysticism he follows: and mets Marcie, a Wall Street broker who’s extremely interested in Max ’s work.

Offering an extremely powerful processing chip for his computer.

It’s only when Max uses that chip, and finds his system crashing again, that things go wrong: and his headaches get worse … 

~≈Â≈~

Now … 

Did’t I just have a whale of a time with this … ?

Lordy, didn’t I just … ?

π is a very surreal little psycho-thriller, one that had me thinking loving of the work of William Gibson: someone who’s been a favourite author for some years.

It’s pacey, intriguing, and, giving a focus on some hard science aspects of number theory, WITHOUT alienating a lay audience, great fun to watch.

I enjoyed it: I think you will too.

π
★★★☆

*        OK, OK, it’s called Pi … !