Mother Love and Hate
I am listening to "Impossible" by Shontelle. I just finished watching a Netflix movie called "I Killed My Mother", a foreign film, French in fact. I don't know how I came across it and I almost did not watch it based on the title and what it was like having a relationship or attempting one with my mother, now much better. Being alone has given me the freedom to watch movies of my choice and listening to the varied music and artist that I like in the moment. But once again I digress. I as hoping to focus my blog on this movie about a love, hate relationship between a yes gay son and his mother. His name was not Elliott like in the movie yesterday but rather Hubert. I always found that name a little ugly in a pretty kind of way. Like the love hate relaitonship between the characters in the movie that name is a love it or hate it name. I find myself drawn to it ironically. I have no idea why. This makes the second movie in a row having to do with the relationship of a son and his mother. Mine was terribly dramatic but today none of that matters to me. What I know today after enduring the pain is that my mother did her best and that I love her and she loves me, as broken as our relationship was for so long. I think it part it took my illness to soften the pain and to bring the love up once more.
In the movie the mother and son are in a constant battle, arguing about everything and agreeing on nothing. They literally yell at each other (don't I wish) and he spends a lot of time at a neighbors home with her son. In one scene at a tanning salon the mothers meet and without knowing it his friend's mother reveals that her son is having a relationship with her son, unknown to her Hubert her son is gay and is holding a relatonship with this lady's son. The mother is much like a dual personality and there are times when she is kind and gentle and then other times when she resents his exisitance and complains about his need to be driven to school and to the video store. Finally at the age of sixteen the mother and father (who is not in his life) decide he needs to be in a boarding school where he gets into more trouble than he'd been in before. Hubert comes home for the summer only to find out that he has been enrolled in the boarding school again. This is when he pulls out all the stops and tells his mother what a horrible mom she has been and that once he turns of age he will never speak to her again. I remember the times when I wanted to say something very similar to my own mother but that was not an option. I think I would have been killed instantly had I expressed my anger. It was simply not acceptable and not a choice. I would go to school and do well and on occassion smoke a cigarette or some pot to get back at her and the fact that I had no control over anything. Eventually we would not speak for something like fifteen or more years some of which she lived in Florida.
As the movie unfolded so did my soul. It became more and more intense with a love scene between Hubert and his boyfriend after they did a Pollack on the walls of his boyfriend's mother's office upon her request. She was the cool mom like the one I use to hang out with when I was upset and had nowhere else to go. Oddly enough she was not any better a mom than mine with flaws that were different from mine, like she did not kick her kid's asses. They on the other hand needed it I think. For me it was the struggle around my sexuality and my big crush on my friend's brother. Like Hubert I had feelings for boys but did not act on it. I kept it a secret until after my divorce at the age of 30. At least Hubert was able to express his feelings and his mother finally confronted him but because he did not tell her before she found it out not because he was gay. It was nothing like that for me. I got married and stayed in secret for over ten years of that portion of my life.
In the end of the movie Hubert looks as though he will commit suicide but does not suceed and never once did he attempt to kill his mom, although he talked and thought about it often. I too remember the nights when I wished myself dead but never tried to off myself. I finally ran away from home like Hubert ran away from the school to a little cottage that his dad owned and they lived in when they were poor. After the mother finishes telling off the dean of the school who calls her to tell her that her son ran off the mother goes to the cottage (likely tipped off by his boyfriend) and when she walks in the boyfriend tells her he is by the rocks near the water. As she goes towards him all the memories of when he was a child and his mother was more stable race across the screen. He is this cute little boy with curly hair and his mother is hugging him, chasing him, holding and hugging him. There was a time when things were better and the memories sufficed to bring them back together as she sat next to him on the rock and the movie ended.
In the movie the mother and son are in a constant battle, arguing about everything and agreeing on nothing. They literally yell at each other (don't I wish) and he spends a lot of time at a neighbors home with her son. In one scene at a tanning salon the mothers meet and without knowing it his friend's mother reveals that her son is having a relationship with her son, unknown to her Hubert her son is gay and is holding a relatonship with this lady's son. The mother is much like a dual personality and there are times when she is kind and gentle and then other times when she resents his exisitance and complains about his need to be driven to school and to the video store. Finally at the age of sixteen the mother and father (who is not in his life) decide he needs to be in a boarding school where he gets into more trouble than he'd been in before. Hubert comes home for the summer only to find out that he has been enrolled in the boarding school again. This is when he pulls out all the stops and tells his mother what a horrible mom she has been and that once he turns of age he will never speak to her again. I remember the times when I wanted to say something very similar to my own mother but that was not an option. I think I would have been killed instantly had I expressed my anger. It was simply not acceptable and not a choice. I would go to school and do well and on occassion smoke a cigarette or some pot to get back at her and the fact that I had no control over anything. Eventually we would not speak for something like fifteen or more years some of which she lived in Florida.
As the movie unfolded so did my soul. It became more and more intense with a love scene between Hubert and his boyfriend after they did a Pollack on the walls of his boyfriend's mother's office upon her request. She was the cool mom like the one I use to hang out with when I was upset and had nowhere else to go. Oddly enough she was not any better a mom than mine with flaws that were different from mine, like she did not kick her kid's asses. They on the other hand needed it I think. For me it was the struggle around my sexuality and my big crush on my friend's brother. Like Hubert I had feelings for boys but did not act on it. I kept it a secret until after my divorce at the age of 30. At least Hubert was able to express his feelings and his mother finally confronted him but because he did not tell her before she found it out not because he was gay. It was nothing like that for me. I got married and stayed in secret for over ten years of that portion of my life.
In the end of the movie Hubert looks as though he will commit suicide but does not suceed and never once did he attempt to kill his mom, although he talked and thought about it often. I too remember the nights when I wished myself dead but never tried to off myself. I finally ran away from home like Hubert ran away from the school to a little cottage that his dad owned and they lived in when they were poor. After the mother finishes telling off the dean of the school who calls her to tell her that her son ran off the mother goes to the cottage (likely tipped off by his boyfriend) and when she walks in the boyfriend tells her he is by the rocks near the water. As she goes towards him all the memories of when he was a child and his mother was more stable race across the screen. He is this cute little boy with curly hair and his mother is hugging him, chasing him, holding and hugging him. There was a time when things were better and the memories sufficed to bring them back together as she sat next to him on the rock and the movie ended.
Comments
Post a Comment