Michael Andrillon | Staff Writer
Now, when are you going to have kids? There used to be a time when this question was asked out of genuine curiosity, and it still brings all kinds of baggage before conception even begins. Think of the money, your freedom and one can feel out of their element in today’s climate.
Not so much for our protagonist, talented conductor Julia, who did everything right, but even that may not be enough.
Julia, along with her husband, visits a private clinic and receives a fertility treatment with all the foundation laid for a future of parenthood and the pages turned on a new chapter. What follows is the underlying and simmering anxieties in which the miracle of life becomes possibly a curse.
Anxieties and paranoia loom throughout the elegant and sterile scenery, communicating all the more effectively the cracks that begin to emerge under the facade of stability and structure.
Julia checks out an axolotl at the clinic | Photo via Filmladen
The modern designs of the various interiors from Julia’s home, the clinic, and the darkly ambient sounds of the score and classical pieces tied to Julia’s work serve as interesting elements tied to the organic intimacy of the relationship between a mother and child, tainted by an overarching sense of doom hard to pin down, placing us well within that unnerving state of mind.
The horrors of motherhood are by no means a new concept, with many stories old and new coming along from time to time to add their own stylized spin, like Rosemary’s Baby or The Babadook. And yet I feel director Johanna Moder has added a slickly modern and quiet anxiety that fits neatly, perhaps even resonating all the more with its presentation and themes.
The only elements that may catch those off guard are the pacing, which escorts us from one unnerving development to another in arthouse fashion, with a deliberately steady hand that works its way ever so slowly towards the grand finale, orchestrated very well. I can’t help but love myself a wild climax.
Is it depression? A conspiracy? A commentary on the unstable foundations we use to keep ourselves afloat? Sexism? It’s a bit of everything with surely more that those with a keener eye may be able to spot with further viewings, and that makes for a film worth noting.
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