Goodnight Mommy/Ich seh, Ich seh - 5/31 Days of Halloween

This is a fucked up movie.  Also it's an Austrian film, German with English subtitles.  I figured I'd let you know because somehow I missed this bit of information before going to see it.  Oh, and the original title translates to "I see, I see", which is very different from the English title.

This is also a beautiful movie.  The cinematography is stunning, and the themes borrow heavily from some of the best horror films of all time (the Shining & Eyes Without a Face are obvious visual influences).  And the child actors who play Lukas & Elias are phenomenal.  The movie takes place on a highly modern country getaway, and begins with the ominous little boys playing outside.  They are mirrors of each other, so in tune.

The sets are fiercely unnerving, full of out-of-focus art portraits, creepy dolls and weird patterns (such as the ant wallpaper in the boys bedroom).  Most unnerving of all, of course, is their "mother" (is she really?), a modern mirror of Eyes Without a Face.  She comes back from her surgery short tempered, exhausted, and cold.  The opposite of the mother they remember.

The film shows it's hand quite early, which left me wishing for a different outcome the entire film.  Perhaps that was the core in a way, that it was so simple to see what was coming but having no way as a viewer to stop it or wish it into something more unexpected.  In either case, the film's slowly mounting dread is effective.

For such an artistic project, it has its moments of shocking brutality (warning for people who love cats), set against such a peaceful, lush landscape.  From a feminist perspective I can't really say much about it, which is strange for me.  The characters were neither misogynistic nor exemplary.  They simply were.  And there is power in that as well.

If you're in the mood for a somber, art-y dread daydream, this is the film for you.

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Entertaining 3/5        Intelligent 3/5        Unsettling 5/5

  Scary 3/5        Gory 2/5        Funny 0/5         Artistic 5/5
 
Representation of Minorities 0/5        Representation of Women 2.5/5
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