My "Mommy" is on Instagram
While, yes, my actual mother did recently join the Instagram family, I’m not talking about her. I’m talking about Xavier Dolan’s cinematic masterpiece Mommy. When I first watched the film, I was not necessarily interested the entire time. As the film went on and on, I found myself drifting in focus to my grocery list and what homework I had due the next day.
I realize that my initial experience watching the film does not necessarily embody the phrase “cinematic masterpiece” that I have offered up as a descriptor of this movie. However, the longer I sat in that seat and half watched the story of these three unlikely friends unfold before me, the more I became affected by them and their experiences.
The interesting thing about this film, I noticed, is the framing of each scene individually. The majority of the movie is shot in a typical square Instagram like frame. Similar to how people act on this specific social media platform (AKA not as their true selves), the characters in Mommy were shown in the 1:1 aspect ratio during points in their lives when they were pretending that everything was as hunky dory as they hoped others would see it. And, unfortunately, this was almost the entirety of the film.
Steve, Diane, and Kyla spent most of the film in this perfect square frame, showing that the majority of their lives that we saw in this small portion of their overall story was a representation of the three attempting to be something they weren’t: a normal family. There were times when the frame would open up to a full screen width, but this only happened when they stopped pretending. The aspect ratio widened when they stopped caring about how they looked on the outside and only worried about each other and their true happiness.
Compare this shot of the dramatic ending scene...
...to this shot of the three during a happy time.
While the film rolled on, I noticed that whenever the frame was 1:1, I kept seeing the shots as ~*artsy*~ Instagram photos that I could see while scrolling through the app. This became a moment of severe self-reflection. I realized that I am so accustomed to being on social networking sites and seeing that 1:1 ratio on a regular basis on my phone screen that when it was put in front of me in another form, I couldn’t take myself out of that Instagram mind frame.
So as I sat there letting this film roll and roll in front of me – regardless of what my mind was actually doing – I learned something about myself and the society in which I have been living. The film itself was exhausting in both plot and length but it taught me something about myself. It made me think and challenged everything I knew about my own perspectives and experiences. And for that reason, I stand by the label “cinematic masterpiece.” Because that’s ultimately what every creative spirit aims to do: make an impact.
