Mother! 2017

Darren Aronofsky's mother! is the most thought-provocative and definitely a very controversial film in recent years, and it fills with all the biblical symbols and metaphors. The film starts with mother (Jennifer Lawrence) waking up from a recovered burnt-out isolated house, looking for her husband Him (Javier Bardem), a poet who is trying to write his new piece. You would feel puzzled during first half of the film, when a strange man (Ed Harris) and his wife (Michelle Pfeiffer), followed by their two sons, and a bunch of followers entered their solitude. A tragedy strikes and more followers of the poet forcibly occupy their home, and mother finally drives out her unwanted guests.

The second half of the film is more extreme, odd and gory to some, but quite fitting with the chaotic world we are in now - craziness, hate, war and terrorism. When their house is filled with mad men and hypocrites the second time, she deals with them in the most extreme way.

Director uses biblical characters again in his story after his last outing Noah. This time, however, he uses the characters and tales (mainly from Book of Genesis and Book of Revelation) as metaphors. So Javier Bardem's Him is obviously God or Creator, and Jennifer Lawrence's mother is Mother Earth or Mother Nature. Then we can fit in the pieces with Ed Harris's character is actually Adam, Michelle Pfeiffer is his Eve, and the brothers are Cain and Abel. The first half is the creation of our world, and the second half of the film depicting the director's vision of our earth's apocalypse. Some people may be offended by this treatment, but to us, it is very appropriate.

From Mother Earth's point of view, you would sympathise with her and understand why human (the crazy followers) does not deserve to be saved or redeemed. We are the passerby on this earth, and yet we deemed it as our own, and sacrifice and destroy the beautiful planet which are home to all living species. This story ends, or loops back to the beginning, at an ambiguous point when everything restarts when Him wants to try again with his creations. However, we may not have the luxury to start over with our climate changes or chaos around the world.

It is also the chaos depicted in the second half of the film makes the whole piece so special. The contrast is too great and sharp and it shocks you to the bone to witness our damage to the world. mother! is the best film of 2017 so far, along with Blade Runner 2049.