The post-millennium "Harold and Maude."

Of course, in this French film about a young man who falls in love with an older woman, the object of his desire is his own mother. What could be more French than that?

The name Isabelle Huppert has become synonymous with challenging, sexually charged films. Her work in "The Piano Teacher" and "I Heart Huckabees" have proven her to be one of the most daring and provocative actresses working in film today. I can promise you that I will not miss any of her new films from this day forward and you should make the same promise to yourself. Who but Huppert could play this role with the audacity she does yet retain a human and realistic quality? No one. Huppert is a remarkable woman and a remarkable actress. She insists on challenging herself with her choice of roles and the viewer is ultimately the winner.

Add the name of Louis Garrol to Huppert's as a young actor who seems unafraid to work in sexually provocative and intelligent films that are also made by some of the most visionary directors working in the medium. In Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Dreamers," Garrol proved himself unashamed and audacious as an actor and his work here is equally revelatory. Garrol is a gorgeous young man and watching him inhabit the frame in various states of undress throughout this film is nothing short of breathtaking. But Garrol's beautiful physique is not exposed here simply for the sake of eroticism or shock. His nudity is an important and complex part of the film. It simply doesn't hurt that he is a living Adonis, a Greek statue come to life. Seeing him here may cause constant arousal in any viewer of either gender but his brooding and contemplative performance will win you over as easily as his stunning body will.

Filmmaker and scripter Christophe Honore, working from a novel by Georges Bataille, has crafted a challenging and liberating film that will stick with the viewer long after the final frame has passed through the projector. "Ma Mere" has several interesting existential themes threaded throughout its run time all of which are based on the notion that sexuality as an important part of our physical and psychological reality. This is an important film and one that should not be missed by any serious film viewer.

"Ma Mere" ends with one of the most troubling and breath taking endings I've ever seen. Literally. It took me several minutes after the abrupt ending of the film to catch my breath and return to a normal state. The exclamation point at the end of the film here is that compelling.

For those of you who have seen the film, I offer this consideration of its conclusion. I highly suggest you watch this important work and come back to this review and read further if you have not already seen the film. (In other words: Spoilers alert!)

I think the end of the movie reflects Pierre's evolution from a dour and unhappy youth, someone who is not enamoured with life, into someone who has discovered not only sex and perversion but also happiness and love. He explores his sexual desire for his mother (who, as the movie shows, was never a "real" mother to him in the first place) because he must explore this... his love for her is that deep - it is sexual and maternal...

His life has been boring, frustrating and pointless, devoid of spirituality and understanding because, as a youth, he hasn't really experienced anything. When he has sex with his mother, life opens up to him... He finds everything he has been looking for and existential meaning finally enters his psyche. He masturbates because he is alive. He is pleasuring himself. He "feels" something more meaningful and intense than anything else he has felt before. His mother has made the ultimate sacrifice, even if her intentions may not have been to do so, by sleeping with him, fulfilling both of their desires, and showing him he is not wrong to want to have sex with her, not wrong to desire her.

This is Freudian and Oedipal, yes, and the end of the film is an affirmation of such desires which suggests that taboo and societal morals do nothing but inhibit us and, in the end, kill us. The mother is not only dead physically. Before she sleeps with her son she is dead emotionally, spiritually and sexually. She has been suffocated by a society which suggests she is "immoral" and "perverse." This is why she seeks out immoral and perverse sexual relationships as a woman who has become a mother (the father also desires the son but that's a whole other story). Her sacrifice in the end is to give her life to prove to her son that he is neither perverse nor immoral. That he is not wrong to have sexual feelings for her or any other sexual feelings.

So, at the end of the film, when Pierre cries out that he wants to live, he reaffirms all that his mother has shown him. There is nothing psychologically wrong with him. There is nothing spiritually wrong with him. He is yelling to tell her that he understands what she was trying to show him.

It's easy to condemn this family and consider them "perverse," "dysfunctional" and "F'ed up" but when we do so, we are only falling prey to societal and cultural pressure which ultimately render us incapable of making decisions for ourselves which may be right for us even if they are not right for others. This film believes, and rightly so, that there's is nothing wrong with sexual exploration of any kind as long as no one is forced to do something against their will (no one in this film ever does anything he or she doesn't consent to) and that even when one does something sexual that they regret, it is only a part of being alive and human. We should be able to explore, try new things, and participate in many diverse sexual situations in order to find our own path without shame, disgust or regret. Our only failing would be to continue in a sexual existence that we know is not right for own psyches.

The French call an orgasm "a little death" (la petite morte -which I have probably misspelled) and sex and death are ultimately tied together. Sexual couplings between men and women can result in life (I kind of wish the film had ended with Hansi pregnant and Pierre a father) and through sex we can explore the ultimate in existence. Our bodies are designed and created for sex, in many ways, so to test our sexuality is to test our existence. To explore sexuality is to explore the meaning of life. Loulou's submission to masochism is a glaring example of a person testing their existence quite intensely. (In the deleted scene on the DVD, he leaves the sleeping Hansi and Pierre and says, "Have you nothing dirtier for me to do?) His story at pool side of being sexually excited when being cut by a man who wants to "slaughter" him like a "pig" plays into the questions posed by the works of Sade and this film's source author Georges Bataille. Where does pain end and pleasure begin? This is one of the most obvious questions poised by existentialism. Screw "I think therefore I am;" the true ideal is: "I feel pain and pleasure therefore I am."

When Pierre screams, "I want to live" at the end of the film, he is saying even more than just that. He is saying, "I want to explore. I want to feel. I want to love. I want to think for myself. I don't want shame."

Of course, it may be perfectly acceptable and perfectly valid to conclude the exact opposite when considering Pierre's final exclamation. Contemplate the "I" in "I want to live" and you may entertain the notion that the son is delivering the ultimate rejection of his mother. For she has just killed herself and Pierre's outcry may be a protest to her ultimate final choice. For Pierre is young and what do we do when we are young but assimilate all that our parents teach us by word and by example and then accept what we ourselves believe and reject what we consider false and dishonest. Pierre's final lament may mean, "I am not like you. I will not succumb to my own destruction. I will do the opposite of what you have done. I will live." This seeming rejection is, however, in reality, an acceptance of what the mother is trying, consciously or not, to show her son. She proves to him that he is not shameful and disgusting for wanting to sleep with him by doing exactly that and although she is too weak to live with the consequences of her act, she plants the seed in her son's psyche which allows him to accept himself and his feelings by her acts. Her actions and his acceptance and rejection of them provide us with the ultimate example of a parent/child love/hate relationship.

"Ma Mere" is one of the most complex, unique, challenging and important films of 2005. For those who are daring enough to watch this film and consider what it is trying to say, there is a plethora of existential ideals to consider here.

Notes:

In French and sparse English with subtitles.

Filmed in the Canary Islands which are known as a tourist attraction for adults interested in partying. Director and scripter Honore set the film there because he wanted to show a place where sex and sexuality were "consumer goods." The original novel is set in a brothel.

The pop song "Happy Together" by The Turtles is used near the conclusion of the film. In an interview on the DVD release of the film, director Honore tells that this usage, which seems quite odd in the film, was not meant as a joke or as irony. He felt the song was the perfect expression of what both the mother and the son felt towards one and other.

The film played in Cannes and Toronto in 2004 and a brief U.S. arthouse run (which did not include a release in Austin to the best of my knowledge) was begun in the summer of 2005.

Viewed on a DVD in December of 2005.

Report Card

Script: A+

Acting: A+

Cinematography\Lighting: A+

Special Effects\Make Up: A+

Music: A

Final Grade: A+