Mystery is a tool that many good directors know how to use. In the case of a filmmaker like Darren Aronofsky, it's also a big part of his marketing strategy, as he's been hiding as much of his latest film, mother!, from the public as he can. Now, the director himself is doing press and talking about mother!, and as you might expect, he's making some pretty cryptic comments about the mystery movie, including the following,
Knowing that there's some terrifying secret at the core of this thing, that the film's going to go there, and you should only come if you're ready to get on that roller coaster... I want them to be clear that it's the guy who made Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan and the threshold is as high, if not higher, than that. It's definitely different than anything else out there right now. For anyone who has an appetite for that, we'll try do to our best to serve up a delicious meal.
While we don't gain any specifics on what mother! is going to do with its story, at least the tone of the film is definitely being set by Darren Aronofsky. As if the trailer didn't put its audience members on edge enough, these new remarks about the Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem horror thriller are pretty thrill-inducing. Invoking Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan is no small feat, as those are two of Aronofsky's most successful, and best remembered, films. But above all, they are also two of the most harrowing films on the director's resume, with main characters who are seemingly fixated on goals and highs that just might kill them.
But reading into those remarks does recall a theory we have about just what mother! may be setting out to accomplish. Both Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan have been cited as using Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue as inspiration, with the former even inspiring Darren Aronofsky to buy the rights to the film outright in order to recreate one particular scene. So could it be that the man who made those movies is using Paramount's Rosemary's Baby as inspiration for his own tale of Satanic maternity? At this point, anything's possible.
The story of mother! Is far from nailed down, but the experience we're about to receive is pretty well-established. If Aronofsky's promise is to be believed, this film is going to outdo any other film of his, particularly in terms of intensity. Of course, if those previous remarks weren't a daunting enough directive on what to expect, Darren Aronofsky also told Vulture a little bit more about what to expect from mother!:
It's a cruise missile shooting into a wall, this film. I want audiences to be prepared for that and prepped that it's a very intense ride.
mother! will fire said cruise missile into theaters all over on September 16th. So be prepared for something that might just leave you shaken to your core, or at the very least on the edge of your seat.
