What I remember about Nicolas Pesce's debut feature The Eyes of My Mother from those who saw it at Sundance is that it was tough to sit through. Not because it was bad, but because the gore was executed so skillfully that they simply couldn't stand it. That will be a ringing endorsement to a great number of Gothic horror fans, and they'll definitely want to check out the trailer now that it has arrived.
Shot in stark black & white which adds an eerie art house element to the bloody proceedings, the film centers on a young girl who has been taught by her surgeon mother to be very comfortable around blood, viscera, and death. But her passion for anatomy became corrupted, and manifests itself in truly dark ways when she grows older. Kika Magalhães, Will Brill, Flora Diaz, Paul Nazak, Clara Wong, Diana Agostini, and Olivia Bond star. Here's the synopsis:
In their secluded farmhouse, a mother, formerly a surgeon in Portugal, teaches her daughter, Francisca, to understand anatomy and be unfazed by death. One afternoon, a mysterious visitor shatters the idyll of Francisca’s family life, deeply traumatizing the young girl, but also awakening unique curiosities. Though she clings to her increasingly reticent father, Francisca’s loneliness and scarred nature converge years later when her longing to connect with the world around her takes on a dark form. Shot in crisp black and white, the haunting visual compositions evoke its protagonist’s isolation and illuminate her deeply unbalanced worldview. Genre-inflected, but so strikingly unique as to defy categorization, writer/director Nicolas Pesce’s feature debut allows only an elliptical presence in Francisca’s world, guiding our imaginations to follow her into peculiar, secret places.
Well now I've got the chills just looking at it. The Eyes of My Mother hits theaters and ITunes on December 2nd.
