Word: whoring
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...MOTHER and the Whore can be seen as a very reactionary film that condemns contraception, abortion, and the dissolution of traditional values in general. Director Jean Eustache may intend to drag us through a murky decadence that has lost touch with even a sense of style until all it has left is ennui, automatic sex and hyper-self-consciousness. According to this view, the burden of the film is carried by the long, emotional monologue of a woman named Veronika (Francois Lebrun) who tells us that "the only time sex isn't sordid is when two people want to have...
...attempt to get out of this claustrophobic world, like marriage, seems like just another manipulation of unreality. The only thing that makes the acceptance of marriage seem so important is that it is discussed at the end of the film, but Eustache has built The Mother and the Whore so that what happens at the end should be no more important than what happens near the beginning...
...subtly than he could have in a feature-length film. So many conceptual avant-garde movies have burdened us with their length--like Andy Warhol's eight hours of the Empire State building--that we are accustomed to associate subtlety with economy. But nothing in The Mother and the Whore is superfluous, and sometimes the long stretch of time allows for effects impossible in shorter films. By the time Alexandre brushes past his ex-lover Gilberte in the supermarket, for example, we have forgotten her completely, and so we experience the same double-take shock of recognition that he does...
...leave The Mother and the Whore disappointed, but realize a few days later it is still unfolding as you think about it. It's always undercutting itself, being generally obstreperous, mocking any intention to take it seriously. The last line is "I don't like to be watched while I'm vomiting"--a slap in the face to an audience that still half-expects a dance of death silhouetted across a mountain-top at the end of a talky black and white film. But if you see the film without preconceptions or a burning need to analyze, and stick...
...real visual unity. It is lavishly lit by Giuseppe Rotunno (cinematographer also for Fellini and Visconti), but the camera seems to move almost haphazardly, framing the characters with less care than they are acted. Besides excellent performances by Gianinni and Polito, there is a feisty characterization of a queenly whore by Mariangela Melato...