An Austrian cultural angle
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Goodnight Mommy
Russian_Sundays — 9 years ago(April 25, 2016 01:09 AM)
I felt that the film touched on domestic abuse in rural Austrian households, which became big news due to the Fritzl and Kampusch cases. This was less to do with the nature of the abuse itself (which, in the case of the mother, seemed to be rooted in either neglectful or frustrated behaviour) so much as the sheer lack of communication and emotional engagement between the mother and her son. Nothing is addressed, everything is repressed. Even when she's being tortured, the mother is still unable to give her son answers. Repression as a trigger for desperate and squalid acts is a subject that has been frequently addressed by Austrian artists, including Michael Haneke, Elfriede Jellinek, Gtz Spielmann and Helmut Qualtinger. It's also a subject that is often linked, directly or indirectly, to the very particular legacy that the Holocaust has in the Austrian psyche. The scene where the boys find the cat in what appears to be a forgotten mass grave (presumably from the WW2 era) is a point in hand. It's unclear whether the grave has simply remained undiscovered or whether it has been deliberately forgotten. Perhaps the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Either way, the whole idea of not (willingly) knowing and forgetting (and thereby repressing) is probably a cultural-historical reference. When the priest returns the boy to his mother, he has effectively become a facilitator of abuse, no matter how well-meaning his motivations may have been. The fact is that he didn't listen, didn't take the boy seriously despite his cry for help - and was therefore indirectly responsible for what happened subsequently.
On a separate note, it's interesting that the ostensible change in the mother's behaviour is prompted by her renewed beauty. I'm not sure exactly what the film is trying to say with this. The general consensus seems to be that the mother had simply had cosmetic surgery. Depression over her divorce and the loss of her son would perhaps explain why she needs to sleep a lot. But I wonder whether the film is tapping into another Austrian (specifically Viennese) theme; namely, that maintaining a facade, wearing a beautiful mask, allows us to hide the rot and sadness beneath. We are happy that it is hidden; we are able to forget about it. Having it revealed is more frightening than not addressing it; and when it is revealed, the outcome is ugly and alienating.
Anyway, just some meandering and preliminary thoughts from an Austrian angle..