Re: A thread about films featuring grief
Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2018 5:07 pm
THE BABADOOK
Posts are possibly going to be a bit irregular until the New Year as I am in Colombia to celebrate Christmas/New Year with my sister-in-law. That means my resources for viewing films will be somewhat limited. However, Netflix works here, so I got to see this horror film which features the survivors of a husband's death.
This film was on the 'arthouse' list of films that I have.
We are some seven years after the death of the father. The presence of grief is therefore buried quite deeply, and it is arguable whether the monster represents the inability to move on from loss or the reawakening of a long-buried female sexuality. I lean towards the latter, but I can see an interpretation of the former.
The boy clearly wants to replace the father, but has no comprehension of how to do it beyond a superficial desire to protect and sleep with (in an innocent way) his mother. Meanwhile, the wife's inability to move on is blocked by the boy, owing to his age. The situation has persisted so long that she seems emotionally numb, yet invests a lot of the love formerly directed towards the husband (one assumes) into the boy. But it is difficult to disentangle maternal love from sexual love in this context.
Overall, it was too murky a depiction of grief.
Grief grade: C-.
Posts are possibly going to be a bit irregular until the New Year as I am in Colombia to celebrate Christmas/New Year with my sister-in-law. That means my resources for viewing films will be somewhat limited. However, Netflix works here, so I got to see this horror film which features the survivors of a husband's death.
This film was on the 'arthouse' list of films that I have.
We are some seven years after the death of the father. The presence of grief is therefore buried quite deeply, and it is arguable whether the monster represents the inability to move on from loss or the reawakening of a long-buried female sexuality. I lean towards the latter, but I can see an interpretation of the former.
The boy clearly wants to replace the father, but has no comprehension of how to do it beyond a superficial desire to protect and sleep with (in an innocent way) his mother. Meanwhile, the wife's inability to move on is blocked by the boy, owing to his age. The situation has persisted so long that she seems emotionally numb, yet invests a lot of the love formerly directed towards the husband (one assumes) into the boy. But it is difficult to disentangle maternal love from sexual love in this context.
Overall, it was too murky a depiction of grief.
Grief grade: C-.