Kika Magalhaes stars in The Eyes of My Mother |
Onwards and Upwards
Rotten Tomatoes Plot: In their secluded farmhouse, a mother, formerly a surgeon in Portugal, teaches her daughter, Francisca, to understand anatomy and be unfazed by death. One afternoon, a mysterious visitor shatters the idyll of Francisca's family life, deeply traumatizing the young girl, but also awakening unique curiosities. Though she clings to her increasingly reticent father, Francisca's loneliness and scarred nature converge years later when her longing to connect with the world around her takes on a dark form. Shot in crisp black and white, the haunting visual compositions evoke its protagonist's isolation and illuminate her deeply unbalanced worldview. Genre-inflected, but so strikingly unique as to defy categorization, writer/director Nicolas Pesce's feature debut allows only an elliptical presence in Francisca's world, guiding our imaginations to follow her into peculiar, secret places.
When a kid tells you, "I'm going to take care of you," and she's packing surgical instruments, be afraid... be very afraid. The Eyes of My Mother is a brilliant directorial debut for Pesce, and one of the best horror movies in years. It's split into three chapters (Mother, Father, Family) and each one is creepier than the next. Praise galore to Pesce and cinematographer Zach Kuperstein for a myriad of genuinely scary images and situations, hauntingly shot in B&W with all sorts of interesting angles/viewpoints. Be warned: It's gory, realistic and unapologetic. The stuff nightmares are made of.
Grade: B+