What’s Actually Happening In The Beginning And Ending Of Mother!, According To The Film’s Production Designer
One of the best movies of 2017 (and easily one of the most controversial), Darren Aronofsky's mother! serves as a perfect circle, ending in basically the exact same way that it opens -- with a crystal object being placed in a holder, and a house being "born" from some fiery wreckage. What happens in between the bookended "birth" scenes is open to interpretation -- and it's there that the movie, and all conversation about it, tends to go off the rails. But when we hopped on the phone with mother! production designer Phil Messina ahead of the movie's Blu-ray and DVD release, we asked him if the "house" in the opening scene and the "house" in the closing scene are meant to represent the same location, and he confessed:
The longer we dove into the possible meanings of mother! with Phil Messina, the more it became clear that even though he had worked with Darren Aronofsky on the multi-faceted movie -- and had, in fact, designed the house that would capture the action and serve as the central metaphor for the movie -- his version of what the story meant was both different and the same as ours. We had a few likeminded observations. We also broke apart on some of the takeaways regarding the film. He explained that for Aronofsky, that was basically the point, stating:
The cycle is violent. The cycle has many twists and turns. The cycle is unpredictable. With that in mind, I asked Phil Messina if he thought things might play out differently for the lady we saw waking up at the end of mother!, who calls out, "Baby?" He emphatically stated:
The point being that with mother!, no explanation is right or wrong, and no analysis is ever fully complete. It's a movie I've revisited, taking away new interpretations. And I know it will morph and change as I evolve. It's that type of work of art.
Catch up with mother! now that it's on digital, Blu-ray and DVD.
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Sean O’Connell is a journalist and CinemaBlend’s Managing Editor. Having been with the site since 2011, Sean interviewed myriad directors, actors and producers, and created ReelBlend, which he proudly cohosts with Jake Hamilton and Kevin McCarthy. And he's the author of RELEASE THE SNYDER CUT, the Spider-Man history book WITH GREAT POWER, and an upcoming book about Bruce Willis.