Friday, June 6, 2008

A Keen Failure: Mother of Tears

Depending on your point of view, Dario Argento's Mother of Tears is either a delirious romp, complete with wonderfully ludicrous dialogue and generous helpings of stylized gore, or an okay bit of hokum that might be enjoyable if it weren't so disgusting. If I incline to the latter view, it's principally a matter of taste, but I find it difficult to embrace a film whose effect depends so heavily on finding humor in exaggeratedly bloody spectacle (an all too common strategy among contemporary filmmakers) as well as the intentional "badness" of the film's narrative presentation. To be sure the picture shows a vivid imagination at work; would that it was placed in the service of less dubious ends.


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1 comment:

Allison E said...

okay this film sounds like an acid trip. a really disgusting one.
asia argento is making films of her own now yes? that's precisely what we need...another argento.