Page - 120 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 04/01

120 | Jacob Given www.jrfm.eu 2018, 4/1, 117–120 is a gothic and psychedelic experience, to be sure, but it is not composed of the hallucinogenic fear and loathing that the Steadmanesque font might suggest. And why the extra emphasis on the exclamation point, hanging on after the title fades? Why the exclamation point at all? Aronofsky has referred to the film as a “fever dream” following “nightmare logic”, like a “funhouse built on a roll- ercoaster smashing into a wall”.2 Perhaps he emphasizes the arbitrary and ran- dom for the sake of this “nightmare logic”, but the result is a fragmented and confusing aesthetic that, at times, distracts the viewer rather than immersing her in the fever dream. This seemingly random aggregation of allegory, horror, gratuitous blasphemy, and ecological commentary does not achieve the sub- lime disorientation of, say, a David Lynch script. Rather, it comes across more as a surrealist Tarantino film with a very, very loud environmentalist message. BIBLIOGRAPHY Aronofsky, Darren, 2017a, Director Darren Aronofsky on the Mystery of “Mother!” on MTV News, MTV News, 15 September 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3mV6zlkxbc&t=1s [ac- cessed 26 January 2018]. Aronofsky, Darren, 2017b, MOTHER! Director Q&A | TIFF 2017, TIFF Originals, 20 September 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEkV2JOeMYQ [accessed 26 January 2018]. FILMOGRAPHY Mother! (Darren Aronofsky, US 2017). 2 Aronofsky 2017b.