I watched a movie last night which a perfect portrayal of a man in the grips of the mother complex and the devastation caused by such a state. It was a commercially prepared slasher movie about a 9 year old orphan girl adopted by a well meaning couple trying to address their feelings of loss of a third child that miscarried. A review of the movie and synopsis of the plot can be read at the following site:
http://www.imdb.com/reviews/421/42123.html
What the review does not do is explain the underlying psychological structure that makes this a little more interesting that the average "evil child horror" movie. I found this more interesting than say a movie like "The Omen" because there is a very real reference to a psychological phenomenon that is much more accessible that the good /evil paradigm. John Coleman (Peter Sarsgaard) is the real problem in this movie because he has not yet sorted out his mother from his wife from his daughter. This is a good description of the mother complex. In not being able to sort this out he contaminates his marriage and his children and sets the stage for the adoption of a 9 year girl who is to say the least suffering from a character disorder and is a psychopathic killer. The principle characters in this movie are primarily women who are in one way or another against or mistrustful of Kate Coleman (Vera Farmiga)and are dead set on convincing her she is sick or crazy.
It is interesting that the husband finds this lttle girl after he and his wife visit an orphanage and are watching the children playing during a children's party. John took a stroll around the orphange by himself and came upon a lone girl painting in a crafts room and he was smitten by her and her paintings. This is the man that confuses his own anima with the charm of a little girl. This sets the stage for a rivalry between the wife and this orphan whose erotic desires toward the father eventually emerge in the movie. To the reviewer the movie collapsed because the husband believed in his adopted daughter long past reasonableness demanded he pay attention to all the signs. That may be as a critcal review of the film's structure but fits perfectly with the idea that when one is grabbed by the mother complex, one loses all sense of reason. Kate does come through the epxerience and John gets what he deserves ( I have no sympathy for men who refuse to grow up) and the other kids come through probably with some scrapes and bruises and some significant PTSD but what the hell do you expect when the father doesn't don his warcoat and meet the internal dragon head on to save his children from inheriting that garbage. Almost every woman in this movie from the mother in law to the therapist are against Kate and do not stand up for her. The only other woman, the nun,who sides with her doesn't survive. What does this movie say about women in our culture in marriages where the husband/father contaminates the entire family with his inability to grow up?
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This movie got panned by the critics, but it just goes to show that what you take away from a movie is partly a result of what you bring into the experience as a viewer.
ReplyDeleteI had a similar experience watching Fellini's Satyricon, probably one of his weakest films. But the mythological source material and my own mind wandering through the movie made for a rich and interesting evening.
I think Fellini was also trapped in the Mother complex. If you look at a movie like 8 1/2, the main character is only revealed by his interactions with women, be they mothers, wives, actresses, whores, or divas. Yet without the women, it seems there is no persona there.
I also watched Shampoo last night. Similar character, a libidinous young stud who really has no identity without women. What does it say about men?
I think that is where the puer aeternis archetype is played out. One is so captivated by the realm of the feminine that we are pulled back from adulthood. I think the shadow side of that is the In Cold Blood discussion we had. Another thought I had after we talked -the mother complex is also manifested in the desire to circumbent nature's requirement to work, to work through one's inner conflicts as well as work in the world. Those captured by the mother complex try to get rich quick, gambling, breaking the law, robbery such as in In Cold Blood. This is often the young male trying to get something or become someone by circumventing the work normally required to get there. Perry Smith's last words before he was hanged were, "It's wrong to take a life like this". Which reveals his narcissism and desire to be taken care of by society as the mother he may never had. He also could not walk to his death, he resisted climbing the stairs of the gallows and had to be carried. Dick Hickock accepted his fate with alittle more dignity but yet Perry Smith did the killings. One imagines they could not bear the humiliation of finding no safe nor money they were told was in the Clutter home and in that humiliation and darkness within the mother complex turned their rage on an innocent family. Perhaps that same rage exists in the student who can no longer take the humiliation of his classmates and brings a gun to class to externalize the rage which is really internal. These are usually introverts who revert to the world of fantasy precisely at the time in their life when they should be overcoming the dragon within and inserting oneself in the world, job, friends, girlfriend etc. They confuse the two worlds, inner and outer and see the dragon (within) in their fellow students or teachers.
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