Films That Witness Madness

review

MOTHER OF TEARS

Finally.

That's the first thing that crossed my mind when I read of MOTHER OF TEARS going into production. Finally, after 27 years Argento was ready to give his fans what they have been hungering for: the long-awaited conclusion to his Three Mothers trilogy. The first two installments, SUSPIRIA and INFERNO, are both wonderful movies - the former much more so than the latter, however - and have come to define Argento at the peak of his powers. More than any of the other films in his career, the first two installments of the trilogy show just how masterful Argento can be behind the camera. Strike all the remaining films from his filmography and those films alone are enough to warrant Argento's inclusion on any list of great European directors.

It's no great secret that Argento's output has slipped in quality over the years. While THE STENDHAL SYNDROME seemed to mark a return to greatness for the director, several of his following films - PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, THE CARD PLAYER, DO YOU LIKE HITCHCOCK? - were lackluster. Not bad films, mind you. They were just not up to what we would consider the standards of classic Argento. His two Masters of Horror contributions, JENIFER and PELTS, might be fan favorites - and were indeed highlights in a series crowded with lowlights - but neither of them contained the essence of what made Argento great in the first place. The man once known as the Italian Hitchcock had become just another guy behind the camera.

I had to watch MOTHER OF TEARS three times before I came to my ultimate conclusion about the film. The first time, I was so full of expectations that anything less than the greatest film ever made would have been disappointing. The second time, with my expectations out of the way, I could watch it for what it was and not what I wanted it to be. The third time, I realized exactly what I had just spent the last four hours watching.

Garbage.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

MOTHER OF TEARS takes place in Rome, where everybody speaks English, even on the news. After an ancient urn is unearthed and opened, chaos begins to break out in the streets. Inside the urn were various relics belonging to Mater Lacrimarum, the titular Third Mother who we are told is the most beautiful - which she is, bad boob job aside - and the most powerful - which is highly debatable given the fact that all she seems to do is walk around naked and feel herself up. When her research assistant friend is attacked and gutted after opening the urn at the Museum of Ancient Art, Sarah Mandy makes her narrow escape with the help of her dead mother's ghost.

Sarah gives her statement to the police, is considered a nutjob and placed under police surveillance by Detective Marchi. Her boyfriend, Michael, goes off to visit the Monsignor who unearthed the urn but finds the man in a coma. Soon enough he's being followed by a couple of witches - all of whom look like they stepped out of a bad 80s movie - and his kid is abducted. Michael decides to seek help from an exorcist and soon goes missing himself. After a very unexciting chase through both a bookstore and a train car - during which she smashes a witches head in-between a sliding door - Sarah ends up meeting Father Johannes, the exorcist, and, more importantly, a psychic named Marta who tells her that her mother was a powerful white witch who nearly bumped off Mater Suspiriorum - the big baddie in SUSPIRIA - before being killed. She tells Sarah she has inherited her mother's gifts - which apparently only include turning invisible and being able to communicate with her dead mother a la Obi-Wan/Luke Skywalker - and that she alone can stop the Mother of Tears from tearing Rome apart.

Father Johannes tells Sarah that Mater Lacrimarum spreads disease and madness everywhere she goes. Argento - no doubt due to lack of funds - uses illustrations to tell the legend of the urn while Udo Kier, in the role of Father Johannes, struggles through his lines in a way only the great Udo Kier can. In short time, Johannes is dead and off goes Sarah again. Soon, Marta and her girlfriend are dead, Sarah sets her boyfriend on fire and is assaulted by a couple of alchemists, reads a book, finds a building, creeps through catacombs, witnesses an orgy, and faces off against the Mother herself.

Whew.

Budgetary restraints plague the film. We are told that chaos is breaking out all throughout Rome although the only evidence of this we see are a couple of fist fights and two guys beating the living shit out of a car. There's a burning church and the gunning down of a cop tossed in to break up the street fighting monotony. We're also treated to a laughable scene of a woman throwing her obviously fake baby over the side of a bridge - you won't have to look hard to notice the fake baby losing an arm on the way down. Nothing screams apocalypse here. This is Disneyland compared to most CNN news reports on Iraq.

The major fault of the film lies in its climax. We've been prepared for something of an epic showdown between Sarah, the reluctant believer and emerging white witch, and the ultimate of black magic witches. But instead of a bad ass magic vs. magic ending, we get nothing. And I mean NOTHING. I remember watching THE TWO TOWERS and RETURN OF THE KING and thinking "if Gandolf is the most powerful white wizard in all of Middle Earth why does he spend all his time riding around on a horse and hitting people with a stick?" Well, Sarah doesn't get to do any hocus pocus, either. All that talk of latent magical abilities and powers gets left behind. Instead, she defeats the Mother of Tears in a way that anybody - I mean ANYBODY - could have done. The house crumbles and Sarah and Detective Marchi - oh yeah, he just happens to show up - escape. The end.

I'm struggling to think of a single good reason to recommend this film to anyone. Argento fanboys will, of course, jerk themselves raw over it and gorehounds will absolutely eat it up. Argento has never shied away from delivering the gory goodness and this film is full of ultra-violent moments - the eye gouging/vagina impalement sequence is a keeper - but everything looks cartoonish and hokey. Watching someone being strangled with their own intestines is, I'll admit, disgustingly hilarious but I've seen intestines before and they don't look like rubber tubing. Halfway through the aforementioned head-bashing scene I had the unpleasant feeling that I was watching a Fulci film - and not one of his good ones. Everything is violent to the point of distraction and every gag falls flat on its face due to poor execution.

Asia Argento slums it here, delivering line after line of piss-poor dialog - courtesy of American screenwriters Jace Anderson and Adam Gierasch, co-writers of Tobe Hooper's craptastic MORTUARY - and, even though she tries, she simply can't overcome the sheer stupidity of the material. Of course, her father simply can't resist treating us - or himself? - to a boob shot or two as Asia takes a shower. Seems the man just likes filming his own daughter naked. Adam James manages to work wonders with his limited screen time as Michael and Cristian Solimeno likewise manages to make Detective Marchi into something more than a token waste of time. As for Udo Kier... Well, any Udo is better than no Udo and, over acting aside, it's always a pleasure to see the man getting some work. The worst disappointment comes in the form of the Mother herself. I don't fault Moran Atias, a rather beautiful woman, for Mater Lacrimarum's failure as a character. Not enough is done to make the Mother of Tears a truly terrifying figure. While I understand the point of the character - the sheer seductive nature of evil personified - a horror film needs a frightening villain and Mater Lacrimarum doesn't pass the test. She's eye candy, fodder for the pause button, and little else.

Claudio Simonetti turns in a droning, amateurish score - the inclusion of someone whispering "Mother!" throughout the score might be a nod to the famous SUSPIRIA score and its cries of "Witch!" but it generated more laughs from me than warm, fuzzy feelings. It also seriously undermines perhaps the greatest shot in the whole film. As Argento films Asia walking through the humble abode of Mater Lacrimarum in a great, four minute unbroken take, Simonetti delivers nothing more than random noise and horrible electronic feedback that saps the whole sequence of any strength. I used to look forward to their collaborations but after this mess and his terrible score for THE CARD PLAYER, I hope they part ways soon.

As for Argento himself. Well, he merely does what he's been doing for the past decade or so. His direction is never poor but it's becoming more and more obvious that he no longer deserves the mantle of genius. I'll continue to watch his films no matter how badly they break my heart because I have not yet given up on him. I think he still has it in him to produce a late-career masterpiece. I hoped this would have been it. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

Recommended for Argento fanboys and... dare I say it?... Fulci fans only.

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