In terms of love I think the film deals with it in the sense of human kinship overall. The first part of the story, where two young girls fabricate a story of a man who flashes them, is about their disconnect with humanity and a kind of universal love or respect for a stranger. This story reveals how we can simply decide not to love and the dangerous consequences for this revelation. Our lives overlap and our perceptions of other people are more connected and intertwined than is superficially obvious. The girls embody how uncaring and random the events in our lives can be. The middle section of the film shows how this disconnect can occur between family, people who supposedly love each other with the example of the brother and sister not speaking for years. Love does not exist ideally even in a seemingly more pure or intact part of the country. The final act of the film I think deals with an aspect of love, which is trust. The proximity between the killer and the victims is so incredible and unsettling. There is no separation between the crime reporter and the criminal except the victim's perception of who is good and bad, which is based on things they are told and therefore, believe.
I was most interested by the documentary style of the third section of the film. In fact, the events and interviews were real and so were the events. Even so, for me, this was the most riveting of each of the sections because when presented alongside, what the viewer assumes to be, fictional narratives the inexactitude of truth becomes apparent. Nowadays the "mockumentary" and "shakey-cam" styles are in vogue and with the existence as well as universal popularity of user-generated content sites like Youtube, the modern audience is on their toes when it comes to "authenticity" (a concept that films like Mothers questions.)
Manchevski proves that not only is there no obligation to play to any unspoken preconceptions viewers might have about watching movies or preface each aspect of filmmaking with cushiony disclaimers like, "Based on a True Story" or, "Inspired by True Events". Even the documentary aspect of Mothers, can be questioned and mistrusted. Perhaps filmmakers try too hard to convince the viewer that they can choose between unreality and reality when in fact those definitions are too vague to categorize films with. Certainly they are both present in film and other artistic media but whether they should be used as labels is up to the viewer and what they perceive after viewing the film.
-Claudia
"The final act of the film I think deals with an aspect of love, which is trust. The proximity between the killer and the victims is so incredible and unsettling. There is no separation between the crime reporter and the criminal except the victim's perception of who is good and bad, which is based on things they are told and therefore, believe."
ReplyDeleteThis is a really scary, yet true comment. I feel like this was the first real example of trust being a manifestation of love (other than perhaps Double Suicide)-- also in the case of the reporter's wife -- and look what the end result is! Even in the case of Double Suicide, the loving trust winds up in utter tragedy. Perhaps this goes to show some of the more negative effects that love has on people, like blind faith and naivety.
You write about the uncertainity of the truth that becomes apparent in the documentary style portion of the film. It is interesting that you bring up there was never anything along the lines of “Based On A True Story” or “Inspired by True Events” stated at any point in the film. Due to the style of the first two parts of the film which are fictional narratives we are put in the mind set that what we are watching is not real. I didn’t think that the murder story being told was true at first because of this. As the documentary portion progressed, I started to question if it was a real story, if the interviews were real, were these people just actors, if the archival news footage was real, etc. I think the uncertainity we have of the ‘truth of the film’ as viewers ties into the uncertainity of the truth we see in the murder case from statements that clash and questionable evidence. On another level there is also the uncertainity of the truth in those involved themselves, and this due to their emotional bias. Overall, the film on many different levels questions our notions of reality.
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