Mother of Tears (2007)

Director: Dario Argento
Writer: Dario Argento with Jace Anderson and Adam Gierasch

When an ancient urn covered in cryptic symbols is opened, a once powerful witch regains her strength. A skeptical art restorer must destroy the witch before she brings about the second fall of Rome.

Dario Argento is once of my all-time favorite directors. Like many of his fans, after I first saw Suspiria (1977) I was hooked on his elegant and bizarre style. I tend to miss seeing movies in theaters but I made sure that I was there for this one. Mother of Tears is the final installment in Argento's "Three Mothers Trilogy," which began with Suspiria then continued with Inferno (1980). The titular character is one of three sisters or "Mothers" who created witchcraft in the 11th century. Each of the three films includes one of the Mothers as its antagonist; Mater Suspiriorum (Mother of Sighs) in Suspiria; Mater Tenebrarum (Mother of Darkness) in Inferno (not to be confused with Argento's 1982 film Tenebrae); and finally Mater Lachrymarum (Mother of Tears) in this film.

Horror fans regard Argento as one of the greats of the genre. He has a very interesting style that permeates all of his films. A former film critic and screenwriter for several Spaghetti Westerns (including co-writing the screenplay for Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West [1968]), Argento's directorial debut was 1970's The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, the first in his "Animals Trilogy" (followed by Cat o' Nine Tails and Four Flies on Grey Velvet [both 1971]). Their exciting camera work, excessive violence, and usually nonsensical narratives characterize the three gialli (the Italian plural for "yellow" which refers to the yellow covers of Italian pulp novels, usually crime or mystery thrillers). Fans of Argento, or most Italian horror films, will tell you not to bother trying to figure out one of his films because all the holes, gaps, and inconsistencies make the effort futile, but strangely fun.

With Suspiria, considered by many to be his single greatest film, Argento employed highly theatrical/surreal lighting throughout the film. Both interiors and exteriors are awash in bright red, green, blue, and white light to contrast the dark tone and imagery. The music, just as iconic as the images, was preformed by avant-grade rock band Goblin. This mixture of over-the-top image and sound created the perfect atmosphere for the otherworldly story. Continuing with Inferno, Argento again implemented the theatrical lighting and strange sound design to accent the narrative, which introduces the idea of the Three Mothers and retroactively make Suspiria the first installment (originally meant as a stand-alone film). With Mater Suspiriorum and Mater Tenebrarum destroyed, only Mater Lachrymarum remains. Though cited as "music student with cat" in Inferno's credits, she appears in brief scene staring at and hypnotizing the film's hero. This tease would last for nearly two decades.

So, why all this explanation? It seems to me that despite his place in the horror pantheon and fame (he's a national treasure in Italy), Argento is still not well known outside the genre. As a fan, I tried to put my biases aside in order to consider the film objectively. The story is true to Argento's style, creating a mystery then revealing one horrific twist after another. The acting is also on par with most of Argento's film, which is to say that it's not great and laughable at times. I cringe every time Sarah Mandy [Asia Argento] cries out "mommy" but I'll get into my opinion of Dario and Asia's work together later. I want to go ahead and say that I did enjoy the film, it was another great Argento experience (my first seeing it on the big screen) and a satisfying conclusion, I feel, to the Three Mothers Trilogy. However, I did have some issues with the film.

I mention the visual and aural elements of the previous films because they such vital ingredients to the their’ power. Mother of Tears significantly lacks these pieces. In the past decade or so, Argento has been moving more toward using natural lighting and away from expressionism. It's beautifully used in both Sleepless (2001) and The Card Player (2004) because they're giallo films and rooted in reality. With the exception of a couple scenes in Mater Lachrymarum's lair, Mother of Tears is shot with natural lighting, which serves to emphasize the ridiculousness of the story. The film's music, by ex-Goblin member and long-time Argento collaborator Claudio Simonetti, has elements of Suspiria's sound design (e.g. the whispering of key words, unusual instrument sounds) but is primarily a standard orchestral score with odd elements thrown in. In Suspiria and Inferno, the world of the films is a magical and frightening place where inexplicable things happen and we, the audience, can accept the events because the film does not visually or aurally resemble reality. The setting of Mother of Tears, however, resembles modern day Rome and when the seemingly random acts of violence happen, we can't accept them as easily. Had Argento utilized the style of the previous films, then Mother of Tears might not seem so out of place.

I'm not suggesting that Argento needs to revert to his old ways; I like the direction his career has taken. I think he's allowed himself to develop naturally as an artist and because of that, I can appreciate each of his films (except The Phantom of the Opera [1998], I can't hardly look at the thing it's so bad). What I am trying to get at is that I think there should be a kind of aesthetic unity among these three films, as there was in the Animals Trilogy, so that they can play off each other without one appearing inconsistent. I think the long passage of time between Inferno and Mother of Tears (17 years) had a great deal to do with that disconnection.

Another problem I had was the explanation of the Three Mothers. Many of the characters that Sarah encounters recount a different fragment of the Three Mothers legend and in effect the plots of the previous films. From a narrative standpoint, what makes Suspiria and Inferno so interesting is while they are tenuously connected, they can still stand alone as individual films. Mother of Tears attempts to tie up the loose ends of the trilogy by name-dropping past characters and events thus becoming dependant upon the other films and cannot stand on its own.

As promised, my thoughts on Asia's work in the film: Let's be honest, no one ever accused Asia Argento of being the greatest actress in the world. She's appeared in three of her father's films, the back-to-back Trauma (1993), The Stendhal Syndrome (1996), and The Phantom of the Opera. In each, she develops as an actress and has since forged her own career as an actress and director (her film Scarlet Diva [2000] is very interesting to look at). It's not so much her acting in Mother of Tears but her delivery that's troublesome. I think this may have more to do with the script, which feels either rushed or poorly translated, but her delivery of the overly generic dialogue comes across as either flat or too much. As I said, when she cries out "mommy" (Sarah's mother [played by Asia's real mother Daria Nicolodi] guides her as a ghost), I physically cringe because it's so ludicrous, to me, to hear a 33 year-old-woman call her mother "mommy." I know I'm nit picking at this point but it just irritates me to no end.

Speaking of delivery, the witches in the film drove me mad. As Mater Lachrymarum (Moran Atias) grows stronger, witches from all over the world arrive in Rome for the revelry and impending doom. The makeup department really failed here because the whacked-out hair and makeup they applied to these women turns them from potentially sinister to rejects from a Cyndi Lauper video. That coupled with their goofy screaming and laughing makes them unbearable. The same makeup and hair techniques when applied to Atias, a stunning Israeli model, made her unattractive. I remember thinking in the theater when she finally appeared on screen, "I thought Mater Lachrymarum was supposed to be 'the most beautiful of the three.'" It's sad really.

Okay, time to put this one to bed. I know I've had mostly negative criticism for Mother of Tears and yet maintain that I find it a good film. The reason is that one must look at Mother of Tears in context, not just with the other two films in the trilogy, but also with Argento's work as a whole. He has such a distinctive vision that comes across in each of his films, no matter how many faults they may have. After the lights came up in the theater where I saw the film, the woman in front of me (who had been laughing and talking the whole time) apologized if she was too loud but the movie was so silly. I told her, "that's just Dario's style; you really can't take it too seriously.” Hence, the reason I'm so excited to see his next film Giallo, currently in post-production.