EYES OF MY MOTHER, THE
(director/writer: Nicolas Pesce; cinematographer: Zach Kuperstein; editors: Connor Sullivan/Nicolas Pesce; music: Ariel Loh; cast: Kika Magalhaes (Francisca), Will Brill (Charlie), Olivia Bond (Young Francisca), Paul Nazak (Father), Clara Wong (Kimiko), Flora Diaz (Lucy), Diana Agostini (Mother), Joey Curtis-Green (Antonio); Runtime: 76; MPAA Rating: R; producers: Max Born/ Jacob Wasserman/Schuyler Weis; Magnet; 2016in English ans Portuguese with English subtitles)
“The grizzly Gothic tale is a unique shocker in grimness, that’s effective because of its strangeness, being so well-executed and so superbly acted.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
The directorial debut for writer/director,/editor Nicolas Pesce, a former music video director, is an auspicious oneHe tells a weird haunting tale of loneliness as bringing on severe psychological issues. Filming it in an atmospheric black-and-white and using the remote countryside woods for the dark setting, leaves the serial killer drama with an unsettling moody atmosphere.
On a secluded farm the young girl Francisca (Olivia Bond) watches intently as a crazed home invader, Charlie (Will Brill), savagely murders her beloved former eye surgeon Portuguese mom (Diana Agostini). Her uncommunicative father (Paul Nazak) comes home to overcome Charlie while he’s still hacking away and savagely beats him. The girl drags Charlie to the barn and puts him in chains. He buries his wife on the grounds without notifying the authorities. Meanwhile the traumatized Francisca fearing to be alone, keeps the captive alive by secretly feeding him and sewing up his wounds. When she becomes a young adult (Kika Magalhaes, Portuguese actress) her aging dad dies. The girl tries to converse with her dead mom for guidance and is led on a dark path, as she murders Charlie. Now a deranged psychopath killer, Francisca murders a young woman (Clara Wong) she invites to the farm, who is scared off by her strangeness and overbearing need for companionship. Another vic is a young mother (Flora Diaz), who is chained and blinded by a surgical eye operation she learned from her mother, when she tries to take back her kidnapped child. The baby boy Antonio (Joey Curtis-Green) is lovingly raised by her for a few years before the fable finds a way to end everyone’s misery when her captive boy disobeys her command to never go in the barn and goes there.
The grizzly Gothic tale is a unique shocker in grimness, that’s effective because of its strangeness, being so well-executed and so superbly acted.
REVIEWED ON 11/14/2016 GRADE: B