To an inexperienced viewer, it may seem that the mesmerizing, polished thriller "Good night, Mommy" with coldness and pedantry dissects the theme of child cruelty and unmotivated violence. But this is not the case. In the project of the Austrians Veronica Franz and Severin Fiala, one can see not a straightforward suspense with a bunch of slashers and body horror, but a subtle psychologism of the story about the loss of family values. This is a chamber psychological thriller, played out on three characters - a mother and two 10-year-old twin sons.
Prologue of the film. A young woman sings to her sons a lullaby of Brahms "Tomorrow morning, if God pleases, you will wake up." Little angels - twins Elias and Lucas - kiss mommy and wish good night. The father left the family, now they will have to live differently.
Starting point of the plot. The woman returns from the hospital to her rich, icy exquisite and sterile home. After plastic surgery, her face is hidden under bandages. Children recognize only the familiar eyes of the one whose noble appearance they are accustomed to seeing from birth. But most of all, the children are alarmed by the unusual behavior of the mother: she is angry, rude, demands silence and darkness, sets strange rules of behavior, cannot stand the presence of animals. When she mercilessly floods the terrarium with their Madagascar cockroaches, the boys are horrified: our mother would not have done that. A doubt creeps into children's souls that this is their mother, and not some kind of impostor. The everyday phrase that has flown from my lips - with a wish to mommy good night - is devoid of sincerity, it is tortured and insincere. But the woman does not notice the falsehood. The flywheel of the mechanism starts up,
Final shots. A beautiful arthouse house, located by a cornfield on a picturesque lake shore, is engulfed in flames. There are no survivors, just as there are no burnt bodies. The camera captures the figure of a woman in a yellow dress, which moves towards the forest.
Epilogue of the film . Twin brothers Elias and Lucas run across the cornfield to meet their mother. All three of them are smiling, hugging and looking absolutely happy.
Throughout the timekeeping, the authors of the picture scattered triggers - visualized plot anchors that help the correct perception of what is happening on the screen. Their comparison and analysis reveal to the viewer the meaning of the film.
The key is understanding that there is actually only one child in the house - Elias. Lucas lives only in the imagination of his twin brother. This is explained by the footage of the boys playing hide and seek in nature. When Elias opened his eyes to go look for his brother, he saw only circles on the water surface of the lake.
The fact that the child died in an accident is confirmed by the actions of the mother. In the morning, she prepares only one change of clothes and only one breakfast, does not answer Lucas until his brother voices the request. She simply does not see her second son, who is a figment of Elias's imagination.
In violent scenes of violence, it is Lucas who personifies impersonal evil: he first appears in an occult mask, initiates torture, incites his brother to mock a woman without a face until she proves that he is their mother. During Mommy's last "test for authenticity," Lucas holds a burning candle in his hands, threatening to set fire to the house with the impostor.
The original German-language title - Ich seh ich seh - was given to the film by the children's game of the same name “I see, I see”. In it, according to the description, it is necessary to guess the object visible by the host, which is hidden from the player's eyes. This test was crucial for Elias and his Mutter. She tries in vain to convey to the child the idea that he is hallucinating. He does not believe that he lost his brother, does not accept assurances that Lucas's death is not his fault. The fact is that for some time the mother was led by the mentally traumatized Elias: she played along with him, pretended that both sons were in the house. After returning from the hospital, she refused to do this, as evidenced by the phrase from a telephone conversation with a psychoanalyst: "... I can no longer deceive him."
At the end of the film, Elias invites his mother, completely disfigured and exhausted from bullying, to play "I see, I see." With teenage persistence and unhealthy stubbornness, he offers to guess what Lucas is doing at the moment (the screen shows that he is holding a burning candle near the window curtain). Obviously, the mother cannot win the game, because one son is only a figment of the other's imagination. Frustrated, Elias grabs the candle from Lucas's hands, brings it to the curtains - a fire breaks out.
The shocking thriller "Good Night Mommy" (2014) was filmed with some contemplation, conscious coldness and detachment. This is done in order to emphasize how completely imperceptible to himself, an adult can become for his child no one, an alien, the most hated creature in the world. The mother was unable to understand her son and help him in time. The result is a terrible family tragedy, played out in an arthouse house located by a cornfield, not far from a picturesque lake.
Comments
Post a Comment