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Ma Mre
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Wikipedia article
'Ma Mre' is a 2004 erotic drama film written and directed by Christophe Honor, based on the posthumous 1966 novel of the same name by French author Georges Bataille. The film follows the incestuous relationship between a 17-year-old boy and his attractive, promiscuous, 43-year-old mother. The film stars Isabelle Huppert, Louis Garrel, Emma de Caunes and Joana Preiss.
Honor shot the film on location on the island of Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain. Its dialogue is almost entirely in French with brief segments in Spanish, German and English. Film distribution company TLA Releasing released 'Ma Mre' in France, at the Cannes Film Market, on 13 May 2004.
Plot
Seventeen-year-old Pierre has recently left a Catholic boarding school to live with his wealthy parents at their villa on the island of Gran Canaria. Pierre's father dies, leaving his mother Hlne to care for him. While in a restaurant, his mother reveals to him that she had been unfaithful to her husband many times with his knowledge and feels no shame about it. She then insists that her son accept her promiscuous ways. Soon after this, Pierre finds a closet full of his father's pornography. His reaction is to furiously masturbate and then to urinate on the magazine pages.
Hlne encourages her uninhibited sex partner Ra to have sex with Pierre. She does so in public at Gran Canaria's Yumbo Centrum, a popular shopping and nightlife complex. Hlne looks on longingly as the partially clothed couple copulates with passersby raising no objections.
Afterwards, Hlne includes her son in an orgy with her friends, including Hansi. After the orgy, Hlne decides that she must leave her son to travel. While saying goodbye to Pierre, she implies that something taboo has happened between them and that she must leave to prevent it from happening again.
Upon Hlne's departure, Hansi enters Pierre's life as a friend. She admits befriending Pierre at Hlne's encouragement but denies receiving a fee from her. Their friendship blossoms into a tender romance and they both fall in love. During their relationship, Hansi reveals that she has participated in sado-masochistic sex many times as a dominatrix with her friend Loulou as the willing masochist. She adds Hlne arranged these encounters as sexual exhibitions for tourists.
Hlne returns home with Ra. Upon arriving, she finds her son and Hansi socializing at a bar near the villa. Hlne and Pierre greet each other and chat while gazing into each other's eyes, with Hansi looking on jealously. Hlne invites her son to sleep with her. He agrees.
Hlne and Pierre enter the house's wine cellar. Hlne asks her son to cut her abdomen with a razor while he masturbates and as he climaxes she slits her own throat. Paramedics take away her body. Pierre says good-bye to his mother before the cremation. He enters the room where she lies in state and masturbates exclaiming that he does not want to die as she is carried out.
Cast
* Isabelle Huppert as Hlne
* Louis Garrel as Pierre
* Emma de Caunes as Hansi
* Joana Preiss as Ra
* Jean-Baptiste Montagut as Loulou
* Dominique Reymond as Marthe
* Olivier Rabourdin as Robert
* Philippe Duclos as Father
Release
Theatrical
'Ma Mre' was rated NC-17 when it was released in the United States. The reason was "strong and aberrant sexual content". For the trailer the film was presented as an NC-17 film while mistakenly defining the rating as "under 17 requires supervision by parent or guardian" (which is the definition of the R rating).Home media
An edited R-rated version running ten minutes shorter was released on DVD. The reason for the R rated version was "Strong Aberrant Sexuality, Some Language and Violent Images".Reception
Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 14% based on reviews from 43 critics. The site's consensus reads "Pretentious, overly perverse and dull." On Metacritic the film has a score of 35% based on reviews from 19 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".
Scott Foundas of Variety called it "Respectable, tightly coiled, but ultimately unrewarding."
Jonathan Romney associated the film with the New French Extremity.
See also
* Isabelle Huppert on screen and stage
* List of NC-17 rated films
* List of French films of 2004
References
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