Mother’s Hug Review – A Confused Service of Traumatic Horror as a Firefighter Deals with a Troubled Past | film

TIt’s 1996, the country is Brazil, and young firefighter Ana (Marjorie Estiano) returns to work after a layoff. We see in flashback that, as a young child, she survived the horrific experience of her disturbed mother attempting to carry out a murder-suicide. Unfortunately, one of her first jobs back at work was to answer a call from a run-down nursing home in the middle of nowhere. The first sign that something is wrong when she and the crew agree is that no one in the house will admit that they made the call in the first place. It’s also clear that the venue itself is an issue. They have the kind of dampness in the walls that is not only a challenge for real estate agents, but can also seep into your soul.

The stage is thus set for Anna’s dangers, past and present, to collide. Of course, people with traumatic backgrounds are a dime a dozen in the horror genre right now; Gone are the days when the horror and anxiety stemmed from the fact that these thorny things were happening to an ordinary family, a cute little girl or an average group of teenagers, and therefore they could happen to you too. Perhaps the filmmakers are getting at the truth that no one truly sees themselves as having lived a life free of turmoil. Everyone is vulnerable.

The Mother’s Embrace turns out to be a simple yet interestingly unhinged and unexpected entry into the canon of thoughtful shock horror. Her strongest suit is emotions and images, with the constant nauseous feeling that Anna has wandered into a bad dream. But is it her bad dream or someone else’s dream? The excellent, nightmarish production design suggests that the answer doesn’t matter; She’s in trouble either way.