These Fractured Symphonies

It is Wicked Wednesday, kids. You know what that means – time to revel on the eerie side. Tonight, I’m heading out to view “Mama” in what looks like a chilling foray into the supernatural. The fact that Guillermo del Toro is an executive producer gets me behind this one pretty quickly, and makes me realize that while the advertisements market this film as one from the horror genre, it will be likely have deeper layers of meaning.

As a believer that heritage and culture largely influence art, I always look for Latin, specifically Mexican, themes in del Toro’s movies. My mother is of Mexican descent and I remember being scared to death by tales of La Llorena ( or “La Bruja” as my family called her), the infamous weeping woman who supposedly drown all her 12 children in a river after her husband had an affair. One of my great aunts actually told us she had an encounter with La Llorena when she was walking home one evening with a small child. La Llorena came before them and asked for forgiveness, for it is said that because of her sins, she must travel the world for eternity requesting absolution from her sins. The little boy, terror-stricken, cried that they forgave her. La Llorena shrieked and then disappeared as readily as she had come before them. To this day, I wonder if I will ever encounter her, or if this was a legend to get us children to behave when we were out of line. At any rate, I always like to see how the parental and supernatural motifs will develop in del Toro’s films.

Once I return, I’ll give you a breakdown of  my thoughts on “Mama”. In the meantime, if you haven’t had the chance, take a peek at the trailer.

In short, nothing says scared stiff like the spirit of an angry, vengeance-fuelled mother. Women in general are frightening enough without having a brood of duckings to watch over. Just watch the Investigative Discovery Channel on Friday nights or read Frankenstein. Either way, you’ll see what I mean. Have a horrific hump day!

This entry was posted on January 23, 2013 at 10:49 pm and is filed under movies, supernatural, Wicked Wednesday with tags deadly women, femme fatale friday, Frankenstein, ghosts, Guillermo del Toro, horror films, horror movies, ID channel, investigative discovery channel, la bruja, la llorena, Mama, Mary Shelley, mothers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.