(Apr. 28, 2024 ● Oslin Pierrette)
Dang, now I understand all the Ingmar Bergman praise. He is definitely one of the greats, especially with this one. I will be going down the rabbit hole of course.
I am my mother’s daughter, and my mother is completely broken, and that’s what I was molded after. Trying to make sense of all her brokenness, and being stuck in that constant empty confusion full of dissonance. I was in love with an abyss, so now I know no love. I don’t have the capacity, my heart has fallen into the darkness of the abyss, and I don’t know where to find it. This film speaks to the estrangement of a mother to her family, due to her deep narcissism, and how that detrimentally been collapsing & deteriorating her family.
You start out with Viktor and Eva, they seem to have a wonderful & beautiful relationship. Viktor just adores her, absolutely loves her. In awe of the woman he is with, but for some reason she can’t receive his sayings and gestures of love, she doesn’t believe him, nothing he could do about that. It seems as if his love is falling into this abyss of darkness that has no floors, no matter what he does. She seems so timid and reserved. And in her letter she addresses that her biggest obstacle is not knowing who she is, and seeking what that is everyday, what does it mean to live. An incredibly hard thing to initially spark.
Eva invites her mother over, very excited to, apparently they haven’t seen each other for over 7 years. I understand time apart, but there’s no justifiable answer for why one separates willingly for 7 years. But someone close to her mother has died, so she didn’t want her mother alone in that loss. When she comes over you start to see all of the source of Eva’s dark abyss. A black hole is present, and when her mother arrives, the source of this darkness enters as well. You see it with things like the deep frustration she has with her other daughter who is disabled is also here. She just feels this guilt that is crumbling her. She doesn’t properly grieve the loss of Leonardo, she just lets it pass by. You see this aspect of the mother who takes, takes, and takes, and that’s all she is. She is surrounded by people who all they do is give, give, and give, and hope one day they’ll receive the validation and reciprocation in return. But Charlotte, the mother just doesn’t seem to see too far outside of herself. You start to see the true signs that she is just a pure narcissist.
You see the true destruction it is for a kid to grow with a neglectful narcissistic parent that only takes and never gives or nurtures. Charlotte was heavily absent, she was always working on her endeavors that she wanted to do, that’s all that mattered, with no consideration of her family, just constantly up and left. But think about the effects that a young child can absorb from that. They just feel this deep confirmation that they’re not important enough to stay for. Maybe thoughts of they’re running their mother off. Deep void feelings of not feeling loved, being empty of that. Just the constant giving to an empty abyss that is a narcissist, until you can’t love anymore, it hurts too much to open your heart. You turn cold, when you’re looking for warmth where it’s impossible to find, you become more resentful of the cold.
You become undeveloped when you’ve been devoid of things like love. When you feel no touch, no warmth, or no love. You just remain arrested in your childness that has longed for that their whole life. To the point you can’t love, but you need others wrapped around you, so you set up a way of life to enter people’s world, and make them wrap all around you. To the point you have a daughter that you’re supposed to nurture, but you want her to nurture and love you in your brokenness, taking advantage of a child’s love, that their in most cases a young impressionable child would give. In your lack of development and emptiness, made your child fill your void, that led to her lack of development and emptiness. Like this amazing part of the film:
A mother and her daughter. What a terrible combination… of emotions and confusion… and destruction. Everything’s possible and will be done in the name of love and caring. The daughter shall inherit the mother’s injuries. The daughter shall suffer for the mother’s failures. The unhappiness of the mother shall be the daughter’s unhappiness. It’s as if the umbilical cord had never been cut.
It’s like “punishing the children for the sins of the parent to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me”. You see that a lot in reality, the inadequacies and faults of the parent in many cases are reflected through their children. Like Eva having this big obstacle, this void of who she is in this world, and what life is to her. As a child longing for love that was never going to come, she constantly tried to be what her mother wanted her to be. Even if it was against her wants, her mother wants and ways always superseded that. To the point there was no her, any trace of personal identity had been erased in the act of being the puppet her mother wanted her to be for her mother’s own satisfaction. She was too young to understand she didn’t have a nurturing mother, but rather a parasitic leech, siphoning Eva for all she can.
Why…why is the mother like this. Why does everyone she’s involved with parish at her footsteps. She gets into her story, her experience. And you see that she is devoid of everything, of life. She was absent of warmth, so her heart grew too cold to give anyone that ever again. Absent of affection and all those nurturing needs that every human needs. The only thing that she had was music, you then see it’s the only thing that she cared for, it was the only place emotions could live. That brought her at least some form of solace. The only thing she ever truly valued. Outside of that she was emotionally crippled.
Like she wonders, maybe some people have a greater talent for living than others. Maybe some just exist with experiences and memories, but absent of the feelings in life. Walking around empty, a black hole sucking up everything within her vicinity. This is why she can’t be emotionally available to anyone, look in the mirror, self reflect. She deeply fears it. To reflect is to see the broken abyss that she is, she will see the pain that she’s caused, the inadequate figure that she was to everyone’s life that needed her. She’ll see her path in life, and that she led a trail of destruction, especially with anyone she crossed paths with. She will see this treacherous demoralizing darkness. That would only force someone to question, why is this me, what did I deserve to be dealt this hand in life, live this empty existence, why wasn’t I given the chance to live. Thoughts that would only breed deep resentment and maybe a growing hatred for the world. So it’s best to be an emotional escape artist. I could never stand up against my past, stand up against the giant of destruction which is my past. The guilt is inevitable to win, that’s a battle that I never want to face, because I’m inevitable to lose. Until this very moment, a once in lifetime moment, a time of reflection with her daughter that she is allowing her to have. Where they’re putting it all on the table. And they both do. And in the ending of that interaction.
The mother sees her guilt, her destruction, her deterioration, her absolute brokenness that she sees may never be pieced together, so far gone. And in that moment, she begs for forgiveness, she in her deep state of deterioration asks her daughter for much needed help, let’s help each other piece this thing of life together. And in that moment, her daughter for the first time denied her mother, no you don’t get to have that. Look at me, look at Helena, your disabled daughter that you absolutely abandoned, and hate being around because you can’t bear the sight of sick people in need, because how detached from reality you are, a deep narcissist, also you have nothing to offer. Look at these things, the pain, and destruction you caused. Look at the truth, and that’s what you deserved.
That summed up this amazing revelation of a conversation that the daughter needed. And in typical fashion, the mother emotionally escapes from her family, ups and leaves as usual. She couldn’t bear to stew and sit in that truth that brought her great discomfort. So off she went, to go live her life to terrorize the other people of earth with her emptiness and black hole. She has abandoned her family again, because she doesn’t have the capacity for one, she doesn’t have the capacity to love. Now the daughter is writing a letter to her mother that has been gone. In the letter she apologizes for that night of confrontation, she apologized for berating her, instead of comforting her. She reneges on all her sentiments, and agrees that they should work on each other and build each other up. Then she hands the letter to her husband to send off. That’s where you see this parasitic symbiotic relationship of a parasite and their prey. They use them up for all they can, and discard of them, and the prey is stuck in this cycle. Daughter desperate for the Mother’s love that will never come, and the disappointment and hurt to come of it.