Louis Garrel’s Pierre is the vessel of the audience’s discomfort. He begins the film as a repressed innocent, eyes wide with judgment and fear. As the film progresses, particularly in the uncut sequences which explore the boundaries of his sexuality, Garrel portrays a shattering of the self. It is difficult to watch because it is not played as liberation, but as a possession. Pierre’s descent is a collapse of identity; he loses his soul to find his body, and the tragedy is that the trade-off leaves him with nothing.
Because Paradoxically, the censors removed the silence, the stares, and the awkward pauses that make the film an indictment of hedonism. The cut version turns Ma Mère into a scandalous softcore reel. The uncut version, with its full runtime, is a punishing meditation on the hollowing out of the soul. ma mere 2004 nc 17 uncut english subs