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Sexual and religious angst on the Canary Islands. : October 30, 2005

One would think that Christophe Honor? when casting Ma M?re would at least wanted to have actors who are at the very least sexy. If he had done this, the film would have been far more interesting and at least remotely titillating. A butch, muscled, truculent young actor playing Pierre, Helene?s morally tormented son would have certainly breathed some life into the proceedings.

There?s a scene that comes half way through Ma Mere where Helene, and her best friend R?a (Joana Preiss) are about to have a kinky threesome with an American. Here Honor? had a perfect opportunity to cast a hunky, sexy actor in an effort to liven things up, but instead he goes for someone so underfed, and under washed that he comes across as absolutely repulsive.

Of course, Honor? didn?t cast anyone remotely attractive and hunky, much to the determent of the film, so consequently we have 110 minutes of Euro silliness mitigated only by the presence of Huppert and the striking ability of the actors to keep a straight face throughout this mess.

Based in the Georges Bataille novel, Ma Mere is all about the mutual exclusivity of sex and god and how Pierre (Louis Garrel) must reconcile his sexual awakening with his religion. To rouse Pierre, we have the ever-fetching Isabelle Huppert as H?l?ne, Pierre?s liberated mother. More than anything, H?l?ne wants to break down her son?s pious inhibitions as well as his wrongfully righteous view of her.

The setting is the Canary Islands and Pierre arrives to spend some time with his mother, who tells him that she?s a drunk and a tart and that she doesn?t want to deny this, but be loved for these traits. More confused than ever, the scraggly-haired, clinically glum, and rather unattractive Pierre is torn between masturbating to his late father?s porn clippings and praying desperately at his makeshift shrine.

Mom, concerned about his attitude, decides that her son needs a sexual initiation, so she fixes him up with Rea, one of her wildest friends, a young woman who is probably a prostitute, but is also obsessed with voluptuously kissing and putting her finger up people?s rectal areas.

In one very public space, R?a riles Pierre into compliance and, before long Pierre is wondering the dunes outside their beach house naked, and anxious to test his newfound moral freedom further as H?l?ne presides over him like a temperamental teacher. When H?l?ne abruptly goes away, she leaves Pierre in the care of Hansi, (Emma de Caunes) an angelic blonde and the saint to R?a?s dark-haired devil.

Between skin shows, the constant licking and sucking, the bare breasts and backsides, and the soporific psuedo-philosophical poolside conversations that stretch on endlessly, Hansi leads Pierre to reflect on the moral boundaries of sexual freedom.

The sex in Ma Mere is without joy, eroticism, or interest, in fact, the whole affair ultimately comes across as a rather tortured, painful, and dispirited. One would think that a reckless mother of a young man who takes her son on an odyssey of sexual adventure with all her perverted, weird friends would be at least provoke some spark of interest, but there?s no such luck here. And it doesn?t help that the film?s initial conceit is fraudulent; the problem being that Huppert?s Helene doesn?t really look like a drunk or a whore ? it seems merely that she could be if she wanted to.

For all its thematic darkness and provocativeness, Ma M?re is rather a disconsolate affair and often feels like a half serious comedy, with most of the life wrung out of it. The characters commit acts that are not remotely realistic and, as such, they lack roundedness, a sense of real-world fears and conscience. They come across more as a group of hermetically sealed and monotonous self-obsessed freaks, who we observe with a cold, clinical detachment, none of them instilling even the remotest amount of sympathy.

So long as Huppert is on screen, there?s someone gorgeous to look at, but she disappears for a long stretch in the middle. Things steadily go downhill from there as we?re left with only Garrel, de Caunes, lots of really bad sex, and a load of half-baked, pretentious poolside psuedo-philosophizing.

It doesn?t help that Honor? dulls his movie by using so much jittery camera work that it looks like an amateurish home movie. When the dialogue isn?t perky with sexual angst, the director fills it out with Samuel Barber?s Adagio for Strings, an inexplicable choice that doesn?t fit with the proceedings and does nothing to enhance what already feels quite meaningless.

The only time in Ma M?re where this viewer actually sat up and took notice was at the end when The Turtles? song Happy Together plays alongside Pierre?s mother-love climax ? which is stupid as it is inexplicable. Other than that, this pitiful excuse for a sexual adventure has never felt so tiresome and so boring. Mike Leonard October 05.

Source: http://www.movie-lib.com/30/ma-mere-reviews.html

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