User reviews

Isabelle Huppert is one of the greatest and boldest actresses there is, unafraid of any role she's given. Unfortunately that sometimes means she's given parts that are, quite frankly, beneath her. Her role in Christophe Honore's screen version of Georges Bataille's novel "Ma Mere" is one of them. She plays a hedonistic woman who, after the death of her husband, initiates her adoring young son in her lifestyle. She attacks the part gamely enough as does a frequently nude young Louis Garrel as the son but the film is mostly unpleasant and shallow. It's like a porn movie with the pretensions of seriousness, as if all sex is just a cover for something more profound rather than as an end in itself. Ultimately it reminded of seventies Europorn and it leaves a very sour taste in the mouth.

If you like French existentialist movies (which in this case is also a perverse "coming of age" movie), this is one of the better ones; if not, don't bother. The first half is slow and cumbersome with the scenes more like vignettes to reveal the Son's naiveté, while the Mother remains inaccessible until the very end. While the second half remains cumbersome through choppy editing, it is more interesting with the introduction of Hansi and Loulou. Most people seem to get hung up over the Libertine attitudes portrayed through deviant sexual activities, but what I took away was the idea that the psyche of willing participants, and particularly the young or immature, can be damaged by any emotionally charged experience, be it sexual or religious. The struggle is to rise above it. The one scene of particular interest revealed the blurred distinctions between dominant and submissive personalities (Hansi & Loulou), with the Sadist revealed as a Masochist by the emotional damage they were inflicting on themselves through the physical damage inflicted on someone they cared about. The Sadist/Masochist roles are easily reversed as seen through Loulou's comment when he throws himself in the pool in the deleted scene.

Usually the French are much better at tackling "taboo" subjects, but the way this film was done was AWFUL. I appreciate the works of Louis Garrel and Isabelle Huppert, which was the only draw for me to watch Ma Mère. I hadn't read the book the film was adapted from, but the hype was too much to ignore so I watched it. BAD CHOICE. Louis Garrel was decent, as decent as he could be in such an awful film. Isabelle Huppert's performance was not her best, a lot of long pauses and dramatic painful-staring-off-into-the-world stares that just got annoying after awhile. The film did a bad job at establishing the characters. At some parts, I felt as if the characters did things for no reason without ever providing much background to why they act that way and other characters just felt really unnecessary to the story. You leave the film feeling like you don't understand any of the characters, why they do the things they do, even worse you leave not feeling a single emotion of sympathy or hate or ANYTHING for the characters. I also found myself lost at a few parts due to two reasons. 1.) The way the movie was filmed was very distracting, as if someone with a hand-held home video camera kept zooming in and out of the actors faces and 2.) some shots were very dark which made it difficult to understand what was going on (especially at the end). I felt like the film strayed a bit from actually telling an unique story, and became more about nude shots and unusual sex scenes to seem more "daring" and "edgy." I didn't feel like I took anything from the film, or the point of the film. If you want to watch a good Christophe Honoré film, I would advise you to skip this and pick up Les Chansons d'Amour starring Garrel as well.

'Ma mère' is a film on the edge. Director Christophe Honoré (who gave us the little jewel 'Closer to Leo') has adapted a tough book by Georges Bataille that explores incest, sadomasochism, love, family dysfunction, and nebulous moral values of conflicted adolescents caught in the web of sexual investigation. It is filled with difficult scenes and ideas and certainly is not a film for the faint of heart or spirit, but at the same time it is a brave film depicting the dissociative state of sexual mind to which we've come after the influences of such thinkers as Bataille, Foucault, Derida, Gide, and others. Christophe Honoré captures an impossible story extremely well on the screen! 17-year-old Pierre (Louis Garrel of 'The Dreamers') is a spiritually challenged adolescent home from his Catholic school to be with his mother Hélène (Isabelle Huppert) whom he idolizes and loves and see his father (Philippe Duclos) who is distant in every sense. Hélène finds it necessary to inform Pierre of her background (her husband raped her when she was very young, causing such anguish that she has become addicted to a life of immorality as a means of escape), a means of warning him of what close association with her could mean. Pierre is blind to all things negative about Hélène and with the news of his father's death, he demands to be included in the wild sexual life of Hélène and her female lover Réa (Joana Preiss). Hélène is sexually attracted to Pierre and elects to include him in her games of voyeurism (watching Pierre during intercourse with Réa, introducing him to the shallow and compulsive Hansi (Emma de Caunes), mutilation, and all forms of debauchery.

The group goes to the sunny islands off Spain where Pierre falls in love with the dangerous Hansi and follows her lead in learning about his mother's strange and dangerous proclivities, sexual acts which include the involvement of young Loulou (Jean-Baptiste Montagut), a young man whom they torture for the sake of sexual satisfaction. All the while that Pierre is being introduced into Hélène's bizarre world he is conflicted by his superego in the form of the Catholic Church: he is seen reciting catechism in the desert surrounded by a silent, nude Greek chorus a la Fellini. Ultimately the 'vacation' is over and Pierre returns home with Hélène and the ultimate incestuous aspect of the Oedipus complex plays out in a completely bizarre and very dark way. To say more would destroy the impact of the ending.

Isabelle Huppert is brilliant as always, her quiet outwardly plain demeanor disguising the profoundly ill soul inside. Likewise Louis Garrel makes the fragile, gullible, needy and severely conflicted Pierre understandable: we may not agree with his choices as he wades through the strange waters of perversion, but we never lose sight of his vulnerability and passionate need to be loved. There is a lot of graphic sex in this film, but this particular story could not be told without it. Christophe Honoré manages this strange tale by letting the story take us into the realm of the unreal and he never for a moment loses our interest.

Even the music scoring is substantive, using Samuel Barber's own setting of his famous 'Adagio for Strings' for the choral 'Agnus Dei', most appropriately heard when Pierre is mentally visiting his spiritual conflicts with his corporal deeds. This is clearly not a film for everyone, but for those who admire the French cinema history of uncovering strange tales, this is a fine example. In French with English subtitles. Grady Harp

I saw this at the London Film Festival - having seen "A Hole in My Heart" (Ett hâl i mitt hjärta) the previous evening I was prepared to be disturbed ... not sure which was more difficult - probably the Swedish film.

During Ma Mere, the usual trickle of audience members left throughout the film as they found various scenes too hard to take (or hadn't read the programme), but what was really weird was that at times the depravity in the film was so ridiculous that people just laughed ! This was the film's 3rd screening, and it was the last day of the festival, so I guess that the audience weren't committed fans.

At the end of the film, with the soothing music, there was a general amusement amongst the viewers - I don't think we took it very seriously !

I can enjoy sexy French movies as much as the next person. But this movie is simply gross, to the point of being almost comical. Its furthest excesses rival in bawdiness the kinds of high jinks you'd expect to see in a Farrelly Brothers movie, but without the jokes. Quite the opposite, this film is pretty dark. It could have been a brooding, beautifully shot, and deeply literary meditation on the tangled emotions, Freudian and otherwise, that run through families. Especially considering Isabelle Huppert, who I'd think I could enjoy watching do almost anything, maybe even eat a live horse or perform an emergency tracheotomy, her beauty and her abilities being so complex, limitless and profound. But I did have trouble watching her do the things she does here -- where the artfulness present in other parts of the movie is left behind and only absurdity remains. Perhaps I'm just a prude.

A mother (Huppert) and son (Garrel) are living a hedonistic life on some exotic island. They both fool around with the same women. Sounds like a situation with interesting, if twisted, possibilities. But the director has some other agenda - actually several agendas as he is all over the place, unsure what kind of movie he is making. One moment characters are engaging in sexual activities, the next they are spewing pretentious dialog, and then they do something totally unexpected that is seemingly from another movie. The film has no rhyme or rhythm. Some of the scenes are absolutely gross. Although the entire film is incomprehensible, the ending makes no sense whatsoever. Another annoying thing is the director's obsession with graphic male nudity. And what's with Garrel? First he plays a guy who carries on with his sister in "Dreamers," then with his mother in this. A family man.

There are some that put this film in their Top Ten list for 2005, but I greatly hesitate to list it along with films such as 2046 and A History of Violence.

It is a women's film. By that, I do not mean you will see it on Lifetime, but it stars women who are in full control of their sexuality. It celebrates that sexuality like no film I have seen.

Christophe Honoré (Love Songs) adapted an unfinished Georges Bataille novel and directed this film starring Isabelle Huppert (The Piano Teacher, The Bedroom Window, The School of Flesh, I Heart Huckabees) as a mother who has a child to raise after the untimely death of his father.

Pierre (Louis Garrel) has spent his time in a religious boarding school, so mom enlists the aid of her friends to expose his to her debauched lifestyle. Rea (Joana Preiss) and Hansi (Emma de Caunes - The Science of Sleep) do their best to erase all that religious training exposing him to not only regular sex, but some sadism as well.

The Elle Magazine fans who voted Louis Garrel one of their 15 Sexiest Men this year will not be disappointed at all at what they see. The rest, who are more interested in Isabell, Emma, and Joana will also be very pleased.

I am sure we all wish we had a mom like Hélène.

This is a sad movie about the destruction of innocence, Hedonism, loneliness.

At it's best the movie can reach it's ambitious goals and let you wonder about the things you see. I don't know the work of Bataille but the film also refers to the work of M. Houellebecq and Ch. De Laclos.

At it's worst the movie is very dull and seems to last for ages and I was annoyed about the "look what we dare to show" mentality.

The acting is fine but to be honest, this isn't the best movie with Isabelle Huppert I'd ever seen (but also it's not the worst; remember Ghost river).

There are many films which focus on the depraved side of human nature that while disturbing are still examples of excellent cinema. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Bad Lieutenant are two titles that come to mind. While those movies showed depravity at its worst, they had elements critical to any good movie:

• Good writing and a story - Good acting - Good cinematography

Ma Mere has none of these. The characters are not remotely believable, there is very little in terms of story/plot, the writing is not compelling, and the cinematography is amateurish. The entire film hinges on a sequence of pornographic episodes, none of which are remotely erotic but rather a form of forced voyeurism designed to make the viewer ill.

At the end of the movie, (if you make it that far), I was left wondering why I had watched it, which requires the further question of why this movie was made in the first place.

Where does the action take place, in Spain, one of the Spanish islands, the South of France etc?? Why did he in a rage fire the housekeepers? I did not understand the end. Did he finally have sex with his mother, or did he murder her by stabbing her? If so, why? When they carried out a body, was it hers?. What was the significance of some one in the hospital(?) getting a wash? Was it a morgue? When he was caught masturbating by the body why did he say that he didn't wan't to die. My understanding of the film would be much clearer if these points could be cleared up. Many thanks I welcome responses from anyone who can enlighten me on these points. [email protected]

Yet another artsy-fartsy French production, from an unfilmable source: I own the original novel, though I haven't checked it out yet - but I can gather as much from what I've read of author Georges Bataille's work! Despite writer/director Honore''s good intentions to never display sex gratuitously but rather as a means of further developing the plot (as explained in the accompanying interview), the film comes off as both pretentious and pointless - while the updating and change of setting don't work as much as he thinks they do! Most of the characters are repellent and, therefore, one is not easily drawn towards their plight: in fact, the two young women leads Isabelle Huppert and Louis Garrel - both seriously boring! - get involved with (and, particularly, gorgeous Emma De Caunes in a difficult role) are the ones who come off best, no pun intended...

As I watched the movie, I felt (probably like many others) somehow shocked by the powerful and explicit images. Yet it can't be said that this is merely done to make a controversial film. The viewer gets a slowly developing picture of the relationship between mother and son, or more correctly of the adaptation of mother's lifestyle by her son. Finally everybody is invited to morally judge the relations, actions and sayings of the main characters. But as most viewers are likely to enjoy the "forbidden" relationships or explicit scenes, who are we to give criticism? This film puts a whole new dimension in the concept of what is normal, allowed or understood as morally acceptable. It's sometimes almost revolting, and yet when you've seen the story-lines that led to these scenes, you may find the actions acceptable (or maybe I've a twisted mind). I would like to call the attention to the beautifully chosen soundtrack and the abrupt ending, which leaves the viewer a little bit disturbed.

This is a movie which I saw two years ago (I am a man) with a woman who suggested we'd watch it while in intimate circumstances. As I do not intend nor feel the need to give details, I will only say I did not see that French girl again. I hardly watched it; just remembered Isabelle Huppert was in the cast.

My curiosity -or boredom- was strong last night, and I rented it to see what I'd missed. As I don't understand French I could not even have a gist of what the plot was, but I could last night: a very poor attempt to glamorise perversion and diss catholicism. I am a little bit of a pervert and a feeble religious observant, so I may not be accused of being biased or discriminating European art films.

Now I know why I did not feel the need to call her again.