Ma Mère
Ma Mère | |
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Directed by | Christophe Honoré |
Written by | Christophe Honoré |
Produced by | Paulo Branco Bernard-Henri Lévy |
Starring | Isabelle Huppert Louis Garrel Emma de Caunes |
Cinematography | Helene louvart |
Edited by | Chantal Hymans |
Distributed by | Gemini Films |
Release date |
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Running time | 110 minutes |
Country | France |
Language | French |
Budget | $2.7 million[1] |
Box office | $1 million[2] |
Ma Mère (English: My Mother) is a 2004 French film about the incestuous relationship between a 17-year-old boy and his attractive, promiscuous, 43-year-old mother. The film stars Isabelle Huppert, Louis Garrel and Emma de Caunes. French director Christophe Honoré, who wrote the screenplay, based it on the controversial and posthumous 1966 novel of the same name by French author Georges Bataille. Honoré shot the film on location on the island of Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain. Its dialogue is almost entirely in French with brief segments in Spanish, German and English. Film distribution company TLA Releasing released Ma Mère in France, at the Cannes Film Market, on 13 May 2004.
Plot[]
The story revolves around pious, young Pierre (Louis Garrel) who has just left a Catholic boarding school to live with his wealthy parents at their villa on the island of Gran Canaria. Pierre's father (Philipe Duclos) dies, leaving his mother Hélène (Isabelle Huppert) to care for him. While in a restaurant, his mother reveals to him that she had been unfaithful to her husband many times with his knowledge and feels no shame about it. She then insists that her son accept her promiscuous ways. Soon after this, Pierre finds a closet full of his father's pornography. His reaction is to furiously masturbate and then to urinate on the magazine pages.
Hélène encourages her uninhibited sex partner Réa (Joana Preiss) to have sex with Pierre. She does so in public at Gran Canaria's Yumbo Centrum, a popular shopping and nightlife complex. Hélène looks on longingly as the partially clothed couple copulates with passersby raising no objections.
Afterwards, Hélène includes her son in an orgy with her friends, including Hansi (Emma de Caunes). After the orgy, Hélène decides that she must leave her son to travel. While saying goodbye to Pierre, she implies that something taboo has happened between them and that she must leave to prevent it from happening again.
Upon Hélène's departure, Hansi enters Pierre's life as a friend. She admits befriending Pierre at Hélène's encouragement but denies receiving a fee from her. Their friendship blossoms into a tender romance and they both fall in love. During their relationship, Hansi reveals that she has participated in sado-masochistic sex many times as a dominatrix with her friend Loulou (Jean-Baptiste Montagut) as the willing masochist. She adds Hélène arranged these encounters as sexual exhibitions for tourists.
Hélène returns home with Réa. Upon arriving, she finds her son and Hansi socializing at a bar near the villa. Hélène and Pierre greet each other and chat while gazing into each other's eyes, with Hansi looking on jealously. Hélène invites her son to sleep with her. He agrees.
Hélène and Pierre enter the house's wine cellar. Hélène asks her son to cut her abdomen with a razor while he masturbates and as he climaxes she slits her own throat. Paramedics take away her body. Pierre says good-bye to his mother before the cremation. He enters the room where she lies in state and masturbates exclaiming that he does not want to die as he is carried out.
Cast[]
- Isabelle Huppert as Hélène
- Louis Garrel as Pierre
- Emma de Caunes as Hansi
- Joana Preiss as Réa
- Jean-Baptiste Montagut as Loulou
- Dominique Reymond as Marthe
- Olivier Rabourdin as Robert
- Philippe Duclos as Father
Release[]
Ma Mère was rated NC-17 when it was released in the United States. The reason was "strong and aberrant sexual content".[3] For the trailer the film was presented as an NC-17 film while mistakenly defining the rating as "under 17 requires supervision by parent or guardian" (which is the definition of the R rating). An edited R-rated version running ten minutes shorter was released on DVD. The reason for the R rated version was "Strong Aberrant Sexuality, Some Language and Violent Images".
Reception[]
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Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 14% based on reviews from 43 critics. The site's consensus reads "Pretentious, overly perverse and dull."[4] On Metacritic the film has a score of 35% based on reviews from 19 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[5]
Scott Foundas of Variety called it "Respectable, tightly coiled, but ultimately unrewarding."[6][3]
Jonathan Romney, associated the film with the New French Extremity.[citation needed]
See also[]
- Isabelle Huppert on screen and stage
References[]
- ^ "Ma mère". JP's Box-Office.
- ^ "Ma mère". Box Office Mojo.
- ^ Jump up to: a b Stephen Holden (May 13, 2005). "Ma Mère". The New York Times. Retrieved January 16, 2021.
- ^ "My Mother (2004)". Rotten Tomatoes.
- ^ "My Mother". Metacritic. Retrieved 2021-01-01.
- ^ (23 June 2004). "Ma Mere". Variety.
External links[]
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Wikiquote has quotations related to: Ma Mère |
- Ma Mère at IMDb
- Ma Mère at Rotten Tomatoes
- 2004 films
- French-language films
- French films
- Films shot in the Canary Islands
- Incest in film
- Films directed by Christophe Honoré
- Films produced by Paulo Branco
- Films set in the Canary Islands
- French LGBT-related films
- Films about prostitution in Spain
- Films about death
- Films about sexuality
- 2004 LGBT-related films
- LGBT-related drama films
- BDSM in films