The Eyes of My Mother 2016

 

I've never been more split on my feelings about a film in quite awhile. The Eyes of My Mother has me straddling the fence between really good and no big deal. But for it to have me this divided there must be something there. But then again, for it to have me this torn there also must be something missing. 

I'll break it down into a small grouping of Pros vs. Cons: 

Pro: While being shot in black and white the film is absolutely gorgeous. Framed and lit perfectly for just the proper creepiness. Especially worth noting is one particular night scene where the barn is backlit and there is a sense of foreboding. The glow of the full moon, although completely blocked from view, lights up just a touch of mist in the air to lend an otherworldly feel. Some of the interiors of the farmhouse feels like looking at a horror film that was made in the 1940's and while the time period may have been the 1970's (Bonanza is shown on the television so I'm only guessing here) the home (and the family for that matter) feel lost in time. 

Pro: The film is very compact with a tight running time of just 76 minutes so there isn't any room for needless scenes. Also there is only one main character (Francisca) as all of the other characters are very limited in their screen time. So the film basically lives or dies with Kika Magalhaes and while she does a decent enough job here I didn't feel much sympathy for her nor was I rooting against her either. Maybe there was a disconnect for me due to it being partly a foreign language film and while I don't have an issue reading subtitles maybe I don't read them the way they are intended. So this "Pro" almost ends up being a "Con" if I continued to talk myself into it that is. Which brings me to the cons.

 

Con: There's something going on with horror films today that I can't quite put my finger on but it disturbs me. Perhaps it is the negative stigma of being a horror movie that, for the most part, the genre is still looked down upon. Most of them anyway. And honestly how is "good" or "bad" decided in Hollyweird these days? Mostly ticket sales and those little gold statues given out every year called Oscars and we know how Oscar feels about horror. In order to get any recognition from the academy a horror movie has to be damn near perfect. Only 18 horror films have received Oscars in the 90 plus years they have been given out. And most of those are for costume, makeup, sound, or something not in the big six awards. The Silence of the Lambs being the exception but again, here's a film that won Best Picture and the fact that it is a horror film is more looked over than it is loved for. It's almost as if some people say "Yes, it's a horror film, but we'll let that go. It's still really good for a horror film.". Fahhh Q!!! But due to this I feel that for awhile now horror films have tried to be either too cutesy in all the black comedy/absurdist films flooding the market these days or too damn artsy fartsy. Yeah I said artsy fartsy and when I'm not saying that I'm telling all the damn kids to get off my lawn! But this one falls into that artsy fartsy category to me. Loaded with blood and gore but since it's a black and white film instead of being gory it's art house. Which all feels like something films are falling back on instead of just making a good film and damn the critics or detractors because if it's good people will like it. Of course probably not the right people to get the film put on the map but who knows. Let's be real if you're making a horror film it shouldn't be for recognition. It should be for the love of the genre because if not why bother. Horror, to me, more than any other genre seems to be a labor of love. 

And now I've gone off on a tangent and I forget what my original thought was. But yeah, this one felt a little too artsy fartsy to me. Maybe I needed it to be more gritty or less polished. Maybe half of what I praised it for is also what I'm criticizing it for. Maybe I'm just full of shit though too!

Con: Remember when I praised the movie for being only 76 minutes? This felt like two hours. Which isn't a good thing. This could easily have been edited down even more and just been a really good episode of the new Twilight Zone. I know I'm a fickle prick and what do I know? I know this much: I'll give this two and a half decapitated cow heads out of five. It tried. Maybe too much.