My first film review, posted in Mirrorfect on 6th February 2014, was about The Mother (2010), a little-known film in India. To avoid SEO clashes, I couldn’t put up the entire article here. To read the whole one would have to go to the magazine’s main site. But if any reader is piqued by unconventional films that fall through the marketing hype, or those that like to question their own conventions and conditionings like I do, The Mother is highly recommended.
Here’s an excerpt from the review, The Mother (2003): Crossing Lines :
Disclaimer: Anyone who swears by Mother India - or Gorky's Mother, Brecht's or Mahasweta Devi’s - tossed empty tiffin boxes and soiled clothes to be taken care of by the harangued maternal Santa and learnt to dab a handkerchief watching Nirupa Roy through childhood, is best advised to keep away. Those that have enjoyed Pearl Buck's novel may decide to continue, at their own risk.
In 2003, the same year Baghban swept Indian audiences into indignant and validated applause, a small budget British film was also made, meeting the parenthood question head-on. It was never released on our shores, would have likely been banned if it had.
Insomnia is that excellent phase in daily life where one makes unlikely discoveries. Alone in my dark bed, searching a reference to Buck's mater familias, which happens to be one of my favourite books, I met another The Mother (2003), Roger Mitchell's blasphemous take. Half way through the chance introduction, my tiny room exploded, bits of prejudicial ordure splattering onto shadow walls.
Don't say you were not warned, I write blasphemous on purpose. Who hasn’t heard umpteen references to motherhood's alignment to godliness? An Indian child grows inevitably indoctrinated into the mother-country-omniscient cliché. Make no mistake, I am equally in awe of that all-sacrificing angel, but she is not the only embodiment of motherhood, as maternity isn't of womanhood. Or socially conditioned (en)gendering isn't of personhood... READ MORE
There are two trailers of The Mother to be found here and here. (I accept no responsibility for the content of external sites, nor claim any ownership over them.)
