Mother of Tears
Dir. Dario Argento
After 27 years Argento finally returned to the sinister figures of the Three Mothers to complete his trilogy that began with Suspiria (1977) and Inferno (1980).
While wildly different in tone and style from the previous two instalments, Mother of Tears contains some of Argento’s cruellest, most sadistic imagery yet. And that’s saying something. The film follows the outrageous journey of art restoration student Sarah Mandy (Asia Argento) who, after witnessing the brutal murder of her colleague by three mysterious figures, soon realises that a powerful witch known as the Mother of Tears has returned to Rome and intends to unleash evil and untold heartache throughout the world.
Argento teamed up with writers Jace Anderson and Adam Gierasch to pen the shocking and psychedelic Mother of Tears. Anderson and Gierasch also wrote Crocodile, The Toolbox Murders and Mortuary for Tobe Hooper. Argento insisted that Mother of Tears be as different from Suspiria and Inferno as possible, and considering those two films were largely studio based, and their diabolical stories unravelled within singular locations, this film unfolds in epic-feeling proportions. Rome is conveyed as a thriving cosmopolitan city, but one still deeply connected with its past - perfect for a story involving darkness from the past slinking into the present to wreck havoc and mayhem. Anderson and Gierasch's screenplay presents a rather tidy, tight narrative, and events hurtle along at break-neck pace, never pausing for breath.
While its palette is considerably milder than the livid, nightmarish look of Suspiria and Inferno, Mother of Tears is still opulently stylish and lavishly gory. Argento’s characteristically seamless camera-work is still largely present here, most notably in the scene where Sarah discovers the home of the Mother of Tears: her cautious exploration of the sprawling and gothic abode is filmed in one long, languid, floating shot. The violence in the film is as cruel and overtly choreographed as that seen in many of Argento’s previous films. The opening murder of Giselle (Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni) rivals anything the director has depicted before. There are also several unsettling and shocking instances where violence towards children splashes itself across the screen. Sergio Stivaletti’s special effects are competent, however the film is let down by over utilising unconvincing CGI.
At times the film works as a compilation (a 'best of', if you will) of Argento’s oeuvre. Images and themes that cut through his films reoccur here with savage intensity: there are more than a few nods to Phenomena with the inclusion of a sadistic monkey (!), a pool of decaying human remains and Argento’s love of eye violation returns with a vengeance. Seemingly poking fun at his own reputation as a director with a penchant for stylising his depictions of violence in a curiously ‘erotic’ manner, Argento offers us a ghastly death scene in which a character is penetrated by a huge spear between her legs, climaxing in a grotesque spurt of orgasmic gore…
Udo Kier (who previously played a sceptic psychiatrist in Suspiria) appears here as a frantic priest. Argento’s co-writer of Suspiria, Daria Nicolodi, also appears here as Sarah's spectral mother, guiding her through this hellish odyssey. This marks the first time Nicolodi and Argento have worked together since Opera (1987).
With Mother of Tears, Argento hasn’t quite made the ‘return to form’ many of his fans may have hoped for. The film simply runs out of steam towards the end and can't sustain the epic climax it was striving for. It expires with a whimper, not a bang unfortunately. This does seem to be in keeping with the prior two films though, as they also began with climactic scenes of the sort of tension and cathartic violence that most other films would end with, while the remainder of their narratives meandered dreamlike towards sudden, rather blunt endings. Dario Argento has proved with this film though, that he is still a force to be reckoned with in the genre, and has created an outrageous, weirdly camp, horror oddity.
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| Oh Mother the blood! The blood was everywhere... |
