Mammoth (2009)

Jackie Vidales: "Did you know that we are made of stardust?"

By Lukas Moodysson
With Gael Garcia Bernal, Michelle Williams and Marife Necesito

I wanted to see Mammoth for a long time, it wasn't directly after I watched Fucking Åmål (1998), but following it I investigated Lukas Moodysson's work and watched Lilja 4-ever (2002) and at that time I decided I should see Mammoth (2009). That almost took me a year though.

Mammoth follows the Vidales family and the people that gravitates around it, from New York to Thailand with ramifications to the Philippines. Ellen Vidales, the mother, is a surgeon in New York, she works the night shift and doesn't spend nearly enough time with her daughter Jackie who is mostly taken care of by Philipino-born nanny Gloria. Gloria has two boys who are taken care of by her own mother back in the Philippines. Leo Vidales, the husband and father, owns a successful video game company and while a backpacker at earth, he is travelling to sign a major contract in Bangkok, Thailand. With separation being both physical and emotional the family will have to hold tight in order to make it through this journey.

The daughter's interest in astronomy might have been a metaphor of the balance in the solar system, their distance and inter-connectivity and the same thing that happens to humans in a family. The proponent of the butterfly effect theory might find this movie to be a perfect example of chaos indirectly unleashed from thousands of miles away.

I really enjoyed to follow the construction and deconstruction of these relationships, through the care and supervision of someone over someone else. Every character here takes care for someone else, yet they do not care as intensely for the person they should be looking over and therefore they feel left with nothing. Leo cares for a young Thai prostitute, Ellen cares for a young boy between life and death at the hospital, Glora cares for Jackie. I liked this dynamism and was really thrilled with how it was going until the movie takes a sudden turn and decides that it's not good to care for strangers and so bad things have to happen to call back the care to a more direct person. This is something that annoyed me, the movie created troubles for all the characters at the same time so they could refocus and have to reconsider their priorities in adversity.

I think it would have been more clever and constructing to have characters deal with this supervision they had and have to balance them instead of having that link broken by accidents and mishaps. Somehow, the message that shines through this choice is that we need adversity in order to see the good things we have.

To a degree, I agree, it is a good message and the movie passes it along brilliantly, however, it would be more enriching to learn to look back. It was a decision that the director (and writer) made which worked, but I think more could have been done. Sadly, Leo had to behave so bad after being so good.

On other notes, I have to say the great selection of songs from Ladytron was amazing and they carried their eerie sound through to the screen perfectly. The acting was good but I can't help notice how Michelle Williams' character was looking exactly like Lilja in Lilja 4-ever, she is the closest you'll find to an American actress to what is on the poster of Lilja 4-ever. I enjoyed the fact that we were both in New York and 2 countries of Asia at the same time, sadly, child prostitution and abuse is once again the name of the game to film in these countries. While dark and gritty, the film takes a fresh look at human relationships.

I liked: Great build up story lines and characters. Great music. Acting.

I disliked : The need to destroy things by force. Some inconsistencies in Leo's behavior.

71/100
The act of caring is scrutinized to dissect the good and bad out of it.\