Mother of Flies
The end of the road is approaching for Mickey, but rather than turning back and accepting her fate she has chosen to continue forwards; surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy having done all they can, her doctors have given her only six months to live, but guided by a dream she and her father Jake have gone to the deep forest to seek out a woman who may be able to help.
Solveig an emissary who negotiates with death, living beyond the tower of stones in a house overtaken by creeping growth and invaded by branches, she says she is a healer who uses natural magic, and with no other options despite her awareness the effort is likely pointless Mickey surrenders herself to the ordeal of three days and nights under the waxing moon.
The latest film from the Adams Family, if Hell Hole was a concession to the commercial then Mother of Flies finds itself in a hole more introspective and filled with dread than The Deeper You Dig, written, produced, directed, shot, edited by and starring the husband/wife/daughter team of John Adams, Toby Poser and Zelda Adams as Jake, Solveig and Mickey, with the soundtrack provided by their alter-egos H6LLB6ND6R and second daughter Lulu in a cameo when on a break from college.
Jake not ready to give up on his daughter and hoping for a miracle he admits he is unable to believe in, he struggles to support the choices Mickey has made even as he acknowledges it is her decision to proceed, not helped by Solveig’s cryptic responses to his quite reasonable questions, an evasive and silent woman who walks along the riverbank beneath majestic trees in black robes and offers foraged mushrooms and roots to her guests for nourishment.
Life and death perhaps opposite ends of a spectrum represented by Jake and Mickey, one living, the other dying, Solveig is the axis around which all bends and twists, personification of the forest where growth and decay are in balance, communing with snakes and using blood charms to remove “the canker,” a bargain in which no cure is going to be without pain and every transaction has the expectation that there will be some form of reward.
Flies synonymous with decay, manifestations of evil, “apostles of ruin, singing the song of rot,” Mother of Flies is the circle of life, a thematic companion piece to A Dark Song, defiant in the face of death in its myriad forms, each one a different facet of the same truth in the same way that “witch” is the label given to any woman who does not conform or comply, the darkest hours those before dawn brings light and hope where even the dead offer kindness to those in desperate need.
Mother of Flies will be available on Shudder from Friday 23rd January
