An enjoyable and engaging exploration of the destructive impact of a subject’s fixation on gaining the mother’s love…
Adapting a novel is never an easy task. The pen allows for many different approaches that do not translate very well in the field of cinema. One such novel that cannot be easily translated, due to the intricate way it unfolds, is Kanae Minato’s Motherhood.
Luckily, Anne Horiizumi did undertake the daunting task to adapt it. Yet, rather than attempting to visualize the thriller that unfolds itself in accordance with the rhythm of the vocalized signifier, she chooses to structure her adaptation around the more emotional undertones of Minato’s narrative. While one could discuss whether such a shift remains faithful to the core message of Minato’s novel, it is more important to decide whether her script, in the hands of Ryuichi Hiroki, has resulted in a good and enjoyable movie.
One day, in the garden of her family’s house, Rumiko Tsuyuki (Erika Toda) finds her daughter (Mei Nagano) hanged in the garden. In the following news report, the mother emphasizes that her daughter would never kill herself and that she has raised her with care and, to her best ability, with love. Not much later, Rumiko visits a church to confess.
Those who expect Motherhood to be a thriller will be sorely disappointed. Rather than being a thriller, Motherhood is a psychological drama structured around emotional highlights – i.e. moments that, either via the signifier or via the act, aims to emotionally impact the spectator. While the result might be too melodramatic for some, Hiroki’s narrative does allow the spectator to grasp, within the confines of a fictional narrative, how the neurotic desire to feel loved impacts the subject and her relational fabric. In our view, Motherhood should not be seen as a drama that explores what it means to be a mother and a daughter, but as what kind of destructive impact the hysterical desire to obtain the (m)Other’s love and recognition has on the mother-daughter bond.
The division of Motherhood in three parts (i.e. The mother’s truth, The Daughter’s truth, and Mother/Daughter’s truth) underlines that both the signifier as well as the image/act are important in the narrative, but also that emphasis lies on revealing the logic of the mother and the daughter and to evoke what kind of neurotic fantasy forms the truth of their subject.
So, what is the phantasmatic truth that animates Rumiko? To be able to formulate her subjective logic, we should not merely recount what she tells – to do so would spoil the story, but highlight the very moment where her subjective logic shows itself. Her logic reveals itself, quite early in the narrative, in a radical shift/contrast she recounts to the priest; Even though she hated the depressive paintings of her future husband Satoshi Tadokoro (Masaki Miura), she decides to approach him when her mother Hanae (Mao Daichi) showers praise on his work. Two things are important to note here; Rumiko merely approaches him to satisfy her mother – or, in other words, to ensure herself from her love – and she reflects a deceptive image to him that is structured by her mother’s signifiers of praise. Yet, the attentive spectator will also notice that her mother, by reacting quite differently to Tadakoro’s work, unconsciously vocalizes to her daughter that she will never be enough for her.
This simple shift unearths the neurotic dynamic that animates Rumiko’s acts and signifiers. Everything she says or does, every signifier she expresses and every act she enacts, aims at satisfying her phantasmatic need to feel loved and erasing any doubt surrounding her subjective worth – i.e. she is, in fact, never loved enough. This subjective pressure to please her mother, which has a certain oppressive quality, pushes Rumiko to fully attain the patriarchal ideal of a married wife.
By highlighting the radical dependent logic of her subject, a whole bunch of questions can be posed: How does the lack of signs of love within her marriage impact her subject (i.e. Tadakoro never compliments her on her food, praise her work in the house, or notices her stylish changes)? Can she, by being filled up with her mother’s praise, avoid the truth that reverberates in this absence? Yet, what will happen once her mother passes away? And what will the subjective impact be of Rumiko’s attempt to satisfy the demands of her impossible-to-please mother-in-law (Atsuko Takahata) and secure her love as well? But, more importantly, what will happen when Rumiko’s daughter starts vocalizing her own desire and suddenly violates Rumiko’s demand to be, at all times, considerate of others and erase herself, as subject and as desire, to keep the maternal Other smiling? Is the birth of such desire not doomed to fundamentally disrupt the bond between her and her mother?
Without spoiling too much, we should nevertheless underline that the tension that follows the daughter’s verbalisation of a wish confirms that, for Rumiko, her daughter was merely an object, a tool, to ensure herself of the (m)Other’s love. The verbalization of her desire turns Rumiko’s daughter into an obstacle that disturbs the bond between herself and her mother. Yet, what will happen to their bond when the need to use her as a tool to ensure herself of her (m)Other’s love disappears?
The daughter’s logic is, unsurprisingly, very similar to the mother’s. Yet, while Rumiko did have a mother that continuously satisfied her unrelentless demand to be loved, the daughter is faced with a mother that, time and time again, indirectly tells her that she is not good enough and not loved unconditionally.
The daughter’s speech, immediately, confirms the object-like position she was put in by her mother. This is not evident by the continued demands from her mother to please her grandmother, but also in the mother’s need to speak in her stead, to verbalize the ideal image her daughter needs to assume by silencing her speech and, thus, her subject. The gifts (e.g. a frilly blouse, new shoes, …) received for public events might seem like acts of love, yet they are not. Not only do these gifts aim to reflect the ideal of familial happiness and motherly love to the societal Other (i.e. other parents and students), but the gift itself, by being giving, silences her daughter’s desire – the lack that would give rise to her own desire is stuffed with gifts. Due to her desire for the love of her motherly figure, Rumiko fails to hear the demand for motherly love that speaks through her daughter’s every word and act. The question that lingers within her is nothing other than following: why do I, who do everything for my mother, not receive her love?
The event that left a definite impact on Rumiko’s daughter’s subject is the fire that destroyed their beautiful house in the woods. While she, as a child, failed to understand the speech between her mother and grandmother, the fact that her mother wanted to save her grandmother instead of her was nevertheless inscribed into her subject. In that moment, Rumiko radically reveals to her daughter the very truth that her desire is not directed at her – she is and will never be good enough. Yet, as she was quite fazed at that time, is that all that happened during this life-changing event?
The composition of Motherhood stands out due to its fluid dynamism and the engaging visual rhythm that results from the thoughtful combination of static and dynamic shots. Besides the fluid dynamism, Hiroki’s composition is also littered with visually pleasing shot compositions. In most cases, the visual pleasure of these shots is function of an elegant play with architectural geometry.
The visual flow is further enhanced by the elegant use of musical accompaniment. The music does not only smoothen out the scene transitions but also highlight the beauty of the fluidity of Hiroki’s dynamism. The more emotional music, however, is used to heighten the emotional impact of certain signifiers or certain acts. In certain sequences, the reliance on music is so strong that it washes away the weight of the performances.
Motherhood, despite being a tad too melodramatic at times and the occasional unsubtlety, still ends up being an enjoyable and engaging exploration of the destructive impact of a subject’s fixation on gaining the (m)Other’s love and that the often-ignored truth that becoming a mother is not that self-evident. Some will surely lament Anne Horiizumi’s choice to diminish the thriller elements of Kanae Minato’s novel, but her melodramatic reworking still constitutes a fresh take on the problematic riddle of motherhood.