Mother of Tears: The Third Mother (2008)
Review by Jeffery J. Timbrell
“It’s all going to burn down. Just like before.” – Mater Tenebrarum, Inferno
The Mother of Tears: The Third Mother (La Terza Madre) is the latest movie from the maestro of Italian horror Dario Argento; the finale of a thirty year trilogy that began with his most popular film Suspiria.
The Three Mothers trilogy deals with an unholy triumvirate of black magic; three ancient witches in the tradition of the monstrous Baba Yaga of Russia, who with their entrenched power, wealth and influence, rule the world. As there are three fates and three Graces, there are also three Sorrows: Mater Suspiriorum (the Mother of Sighs) otherwise known as Helena Markos or “The Black Queen” rules in Germany, the enigmatic Mater Tenebrarum (the Mother of Shadows) the most powerful of the witches rules in New York City, while the youngest, cruelest and most beautiful Mater Lachrymarum (the Mother of Tears) slumbers in Rome. During the events of Suspiria, young Suzy Banyon faced down the horrific Helena Markos and her murderous coven, while in Argento’s Inferno, a young man named Elliot looking for his lost sister discovered the terrifying secret of Mater Tenebrarum and the alchemist Varelli. Now after years of silence an art student Sarah Mandy (Asia Argento) mistakenly awakens the third mother, resulting in a wave of violence and chaos engulfing Rome as a mass of witches from around the world come to pay homage to their newly resurrected mistress. Meanwhile an old enemy of the Three Mothers re-surfaces to aid Sarah in a final, fatal struggle to save the world from a newly awakened Mater Lachrymarum (Moran Atias) and her legion of followers.
The Three Mothers trilogy is unique in horror movies in that it’s a series of stories where each film is a part of the over-all mythos, while at the same time each film is uniquely its own experience. Suspiria is Argento’s twisted fairy tale where the innocent girl faces the wicked witch in a duel to the death. Inferno is dramatically different from Suspiria, while acting as a direct homage to the great Mario Bava (in particular Twitch of the Death Nerve) and to movies like Rosemary’s Baby. The Mother of Tears resembles neither Suspiria nor Inferno; it encapsulates all of the slick Euro 70s exploitation horror from Lucio Fulci to Jess Franco to Hammer Horror and Mario Bava’s Shock. It is unapologetic, violent to an extreme, it is full of nudity and lesbians and sleaze, monkeys, demons, witches and Japanese visual kei witches. Much like Fulci’s New York Ripper, there is a sense of uncomfortable malaise to the events in Mother of Tears that makes you wanna take a bath in peroxide after you watch it. Argento drops all the pretensions, all the tricks and gimmicks, strips down his conventional film style (and the ladies!) and goes right for the jugular. And why not? Argento has done so much in the horror genre, that doing anything else would just be rehashing the movies he made in his youth. Argento always likes to try new and different things every time he makes a movie and while some fans may bemoan that Mother of Tears isn’t Suspiria, the same fans bemoan that every Argento movie made since Suspiria (or beforehand) is not Suspiria. In Mother of Tears, Argento embraces a feeling like Lucio Fulci’s nihilistic Beyond, where the gloves come off and anything goes at any moment. If Hostel is Torture Porn then Mother of Tears is a classy and formal Torture Orgy where Tom Cruise stumbled in by mistake and ended up eating Oprah’s face.
Mother of Tears is not Argento’s strongest film to date, it does not outdo Suspiria, but it is easily the best Argento film in ages. Argento gave himself license to completely let loose with some pent up frustration and the Mother of Tears is the result; a carnival of cannibalism and the undead, demonic murder and violence on an epic, operatic scale. Argento has always presented his visuals with a sense of artistic brilliance and vision, his scenes of violence and debauchery are no different. He gives us the fruits of hell, but he presents them to us like they were a delicatessen of the finest restaurant in the world. We may be eating babies, but can you blame us? The presentation is superb.
For an aficionado of Dario’s cinema; the third, longest awaited, and final installment in the “Three Mother” trilogy connects to every Dario Argento movie. It is a horror mythos coming full circle; from the return of the cursed book of the “Three Mothers” and the alchemist’s conspiracy in Inferno to the black magic witches of Suspiria, to Demons, The Church and Argento’s infamous ‘Animal Giallo’. Mother of Tears even connects to Argento’s recent short movies in the Masters of Horror series Jenifer and Pelts with their flare for the perverse and the grotesque.
The cast is equally notable; Dario’s daughter Asia Argento, who has proven time and again to be a formidable actress is also becoming quite an accomplished director in her own right (Scarlet Diva, The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things). In Mother of Tears Asia is the vulnerable and exotic lead bringing a sense of class to the horror heroine comparable to the great Barbara Steele. In Mother of Tears Asia’s just the tip of the iceberg though; joining her is the always fun Udo Kier (Suspiria, Blade), the legendary Daria Nicolodi (Shock, Inferno), Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni (Terror at the Opera), Franco Leo (Salome, Fellini’s Satyricon), Jun Ichikawa (Cantando dietro I paraventi), Clive Riche (the TV series Rome, Dellamorte Dellamore) and Massimo Sarchielli (Sleepless, Argento’s Phantom of the Opera). The crew is also full of Argento Alumni like composer Claudio Simonetti (Suspiria, Deep Red, Dawn of the Dead) veteran FX artist Danilo Bollettini (Demons) and special make-up effects artist Sergio Stivaletti (Terror at the Opera, Phenomena).
It’s like a homecoming.
Mother of Tears, like every Argento film, will be met with mixed reactions. Argento is not interested in giving fans the typical McDonalds horror, where commercials promise lush and juicy scares only for the movie to deliver a limp, pathetic premise and little else. Argento always creates a rich, exotic and original dish every time he makes a movie; he is not content in repeating his past successes or by relying on his reputation. He’s willing to take a chance even if it’s a failure, he does not submit to formula or to conventional thinking, which is exactly why so many people gravitate towards his films. Love him or hate him Argento is never mediocre. I have never seen an Argento film that didn’t make me think, that didn’t amaze me with its style at least once or didn’t intrigue me with Dario’s unique expression. Mother of Tears is entrenched in Argento’s world of horror and his twisted vision of magic and mayhem, and though Argento is sometimes incoherent, sometimes trashy and sometimes just plain ridiculous, he is never cliche.
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