Conductor Julia can’t name it exactly, but something is wrong with her baby. After many attempts, she has finally become pregnant. Your environment suspects postnatal depression. Or is it about a diabolical conspiracy? With “Mother’s Baby”, filmmaker Johanna Moder presents a psychological thriller who lasts for a long time and celebrated the world premiere competition on Tuesday evening.
From the beginning, 40-year-old Julia (Marie Leuenberger) is at a distance. The luxurious fertility clinic of Dr. Vilfort (“The Square” star Claes Bang) seems cold and repellent when the celebrated artist and her partner Georg (Hans Löw) contact the specialist. In fact, Julia is becoming pregnant for a new method. At birth she learns that the umbilical cord lies around the baby’s neck. The newborn is treated immediately, the parents will only be brought the following day.
The boy is healthy, everything seems perfect. But doubts grow in Julia. Why is the child so quiet? Why can’t she build a bond? And what about the amphibians that Dr. Vilfort holds in his clinic? Julia soon stamps her surroundings as mentally stressed.
Difficult subject
Grazer Johanna Moder became known with comedies such as “Waren Revoluzzer” or “High Performance – Mandarin Lies not”. Now, as a model “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968) by Roman Polanski. In the horror classic, an expectant mother suspects that something is wrong with the child in her stomach. Nobody believes her – but it turns out that she was raped by a demon and the child of the devil does.
A mother’s distance from her child remains an issue with which it is not easy to maintain the sympathy of the audience for the main character. Moder focuses primarily on the phase after childbirth: in long sequences it describes the lonely everyday life of the young mother. The sometimes more dramatic decisions and twists, on the other hand, are quickly dealt with, from which “Mother’s Baby” develops a special dynamic.
In often symmetrical images (camera: Robert Oberrainer), the film succeeds in staying at the heart of the cordial baby, which Julia always only addresses nameless as “the child”. It also forbids to be called a mom by Georg. A suspicion wobbles through the action that is not accidentally reminiscent of “alien”.
Moder keeps the gray subtle. A long imperceptible distance grows between people. This also includes the suspects midwife Gerlinde – played by Julia Franz Richter, who can be seen in Berlin in Berlin in Berlin in a second Austrian work. The director only leaves the fine burr of ambiguity towards the end. Great to euphoric applause.
4 questions for … Johanna Moder
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Image: Roland Schlager (APA)
Source: Nachrichten
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
