Grief has a profound effect on us. The loss and subsequent absence of a loved one leaves permanent scars on our psyche and often has unexpected and far-reaching repercussions, leaving questions forever unanswered, the path forward forever altered. Spanish director Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s feature Madre contemplates these themes, as he expands on his Oscar-nominated short of the same name.
Indeed, that short acts as a prologue to the rest of the film and it is a heart-stopping 20 minutes of a parent’s worst nightmare. Elena (Nieto) in her apartment with her mother, preparing for an afternoon of errands, receives a call from her 6-year-old son, Iván, who’s on vacation with Elena’s ex-husband, Ramon. Ramon has inexplicably left their child on a beach by himself. Elena frantically tries to calm Iván while trying to determine where he is. The police are no help, and the battery on the young boy’s phone is dying. He tells her that a man has appeared on the otherwise deserted beach, coming his way. She tells him to hide. The man comes closer. We hear the man’s muffled voice ask Iván a question. The phone disconnects. The film cuts to a deserted beach, nothing but the sound of waves. It is a harrowing sequence.
Now, like an ellipsis, it is ten years later. Elena is living in a tourist beach town in Southwest France, managing a seaside restaurant, and living in a small apartment by herself. Is this the same beach her son disappeared from? Is she still searching for him? Has she resigned herself to masochistically inhabit a space where her child was taken? No easy answers present themselves, as Sorogoyen (with co-writer Isabel Peña) eschew a procedural narrative this premise might conventionally take. Instead, Elena leaving work one afternoon, spots Jean (Porier), a lanky, copper-haired teen on the beach. Struck by him, she follows him home. The following day, Jean shows up at her restaurant. The two develop a friendship, one that at first bemuses Jean’s parents (the epitome of Parisian bourgeoisie on holiday), but soon becomes disturbing to them, as well as to Elena’s patient boyfriend, Joseba (Brendemühl). The two spend more and more time together, lazy afternoons watching TV, getting drunk on the beach with Jean’s friends. Elena’s motive for this relationship is ambiguous at best, oscillating between maternal and borderline romantic. Jean, for his part, enjoys the attention of an attractive older woman, but there are glimpses that he understands a deeper dynamic is at play. As her relationship with Jean and a brief reunion with her ex-husband amplify her grief, she spirals into anger and bitterness. Madre is a film that for the most part relies on the viewer to interpret these complicated dynamics. And while it engages in this liminal balancing act, the film is a deeply compelling portrait of how intense loss shapes our behavior, our perspective, and most importantly, ourselves.
Madre is available as a Virtual Cinema release.
This article appears in Halloween Mask 2020.