Scary Mother is a film about how an authors writing process begins to unravel her daily life. Manana, a wife and mother of three, begins to distance herself from her family as she's writing a conclusion to what seems to be her most personal fiction novel to date. When the plot of her novel is revealed to her family they seem to think it is too close to reality and is in fact a scathing attack on their domestic life together. Manana then begins to relate to and resemble the protagonist of her novel and finds herself wanting to leave her family in order to finish the book. She begins ranting about myths, and we never really know if she is serious or not, or just trying to put herself in her characters shoes.
The plot of the film itself doesn't really deviate much from this concept up until the end of the film. Obviously because of this, its not a film for everyone, however, if it sounds like your cup of tea, I'd recommend it.
The strengths in Scary Mother are abundant. The cinematography is stellar, presenting a bleak world with occasional bursts of color, something which I've seen many other films attempt but fail. Going hand in hand with this is some dark, dreary and moody set designs. A lot of shots you can visualize working well as a painting or something plucked from a Lynch film. The sound design pays a lot of attention to detail and really helps in having a hypnotizing effect on the audience. Draping these aspects of the film over its unconventional plot gives an uncertain blend. At points I was expecting it to become a thriller or horror, but it never really floats into those genres, just toys with them.
Surprisingly I found this film reminding me a lot of Antonioni's Red Desert, a psychological drama that focuses strongly on atmosphere. A film not really rooted in any sort of strong or conventional plot or genre. Similar to Red Desert, it contains a 'red room' which stands out against the desaturated colors seen in the majority of the film.
Lots of unanswered questions here when the film ends. The last scene contained a lot of information which was probably too much to decipher upon first viewing. I don't understand exactly what was going on. This is not a criticism however, because now I have an urge to see the film again. This seems to be a film that will reveal itself over time. I thoroughly enjoy it.
