Movie : Night, Mother
Director : John Patrick Lowrie
” Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does…” Jean Paul Sartre
The story of ‘Night Mother’ gyrates around existence and nothingness or the beyond. A daughter is seen having a heart to heart conversation with her mother on a zoom call. The conversation has many facets attached to it. It takes the story forward and backward, it inches closer to the occurrences not taken place yet while simultaneously making the viewers visit certain spots of glee that the daughter left behind long time ago.
The discussion is contemplative in nature full of wishes and regrets and an unquenchable urge to coerce the mighty reach of time.
The movie is also about communication and the lack of it. We understand how difficult it would have been for the daughter to keep the feelings inside her for the longest period of time as nobody found a reason to ask her if she was doing fine, they did not care enough. The lockdown imposed on human beings because of the pandemic further worsened the situation as it appeared for many that their fiercest enemy would be solitude. Tranquility would then be for them loud death notes coming for them.
The loud shrieks of the mother, the gunshot towards the end act as the indicator of inevitability. However it also indicates man’s mulish resistance against evident doom.
Arthur Schopenhauer wrote :
” They tell us that Suicide is the greatest piece of Cowardice… That Suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in this world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.”
The lines indicate a certain void that is constantly felt by mankind through thick and thin. Like Macbeth , many feel that life resembles an idiot’s tale full of embellishments without anything significant.
One must however share one’s agony and then perhaps realise how much Universal pain is and suffer knowing that there is company.
The movie is well made, the static shots provide the audience with moments of reflection as they try to locate beauty and despair within the frames.
The performances were impeccable. The connection between the mother and the daughter felt as real as it can get. The dialogues were well written and never felt out of place. The restraint practiced with the background score must be credited. It is a movie that everyone must watch to realise that they are not alone in their struggles, not alone in their miseries.
