Tuesday, 6 August 2024

PART IV. THE REPRESSED SUBTEXT OF THE CHANGELING AND LIFE FOR WITCHES AFTER THE ARTIFICIAL APOCALYPSE IN THE FILM: 'SUSPIRIA, 1 SEPTEMBER 2018, PREMIERE AT THE VENICE FILM FESTIVAL, 152 MINUTES', DIRECTED BY LUCA GUADAGNINO.

§1.0 - Points 1.0–1.12: THIS BLOG'S CONTENTS:
1.1 - THIS BLOG'S TITLE:
1.2 - PART IV. THE REPRESSED SUBTEXT OF THE CHANGELING AND LIFE FOR WITCHES AFTER THE ARTIFICIAL APOCALYPSE IN THE FILM: 'SUSPIRIA, 1 SEPTEMBER 2018, PREMIERE AT THE VENICE FILM FESTIVAL, 152 MINUTES', DIRECTED BY LUCA GUADAGNINO.
1.3 - THIS BLOG'S LISTED SECTIONS AND NUMBERED POINTS:
1.4 - §2.0: Points 2.0–2.12: THE DISCLAIMER /
1.5 - §3.0: Points 3.0–3.3: THE DATES OF RESEARCH, WRITING AND ON-LINE PUBLICATION /
1.6 - §4.0: Points 4.0–4.26: MADAM BLANC'S TROOP OF WITCHES AND MODERN WOMEN /
1.7 - §5.0: Points 5.0–5.18: THE IRON-MAIDEN'S VICE-GRIP OF MATER SUSPIRIORUM /
1.8 - §6.0: Points 6.0–6.31: THE BIBLE, MYTHIC DISCOURSE, CHILD SACRIFICE AND CANNIBALISM /
1.9 - §7.0: Points 7.0–7.30: INFLUENCES OF SATANISM /
1.10 - §8.0: Points 8.0–8.21: RELIGIOUS SOCIETY HAS BECOME A DIFFUSION OF CULTS /
1.11 - §9.0: Points 9.0–9.17: LIFE AFTER THE ARTIFICIAL APOCALYPSE /
1.12 - §10.0: Points 10.0–10.18: COMMENTS ON THE FILM'S SOUND-TRACK: 'SUSPIRIA (MUSIC FOR THE LUCA GUADAGNINO FILM), RELEASED 26 OCTOBER 2018, BY THOM YORKE' /
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§2.0 - THE DISCLAIMER.
2.1 - All rights reserved © Craig Steven Joseph Lacey, 4 December 1976–, Australia. 2.2 - Changing the content or re-publishing this blog is strictly prohibited. 2.3 - This blog is protected by the: 2.4 -Privacy Act 1988 of Australia, against unauthorized access to Craig Steven Joseph Lacey's Samsung Galaxy A05s, and Google account; 2.5 - Cybercrime Act 2001 of Australia, against computer fraud or internet fraud; 2.6 - Copyright Act 1968 of Australia, against intellectual property theft; 2.7 - Universal Copyright Convention, circa 1952; 2.8 - Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, 9 September 1886. 2.9 - Fines and/or prosecution will apply according to Australian and International law in reference to unauthorised access and use of this blog published through the Blogger app of Google.com and the author's storage device(s) with the data. 2.10 - There are five images within this blog. 2.11 - Two are composite images, both using a pair of vertically placed film stills from: Suspiria, 1 September 2018, premiere at the Venice Film Festival, 152 minutes, directed by Luca Guadagnino; a film still from Fritz Lang's film: Metropolis, 10 January 1927, 153 minutes. 2.12 - A photograph of an illustration from Mirror of Martyrs and a film still from the film of 2018, that shows Madame Blanc sending dreams to her students.
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§3.0 - THE DATES OF RESEARCH, WRITING AND ON-LINE PUBLICATION.
3.1 - This blog was started 05.08.2024 and completed 06.08.2024. 3.2 - Researched and composed, 31.07.2024 to 06.08.2024, by Craig Steven Joseph Lacey at Brisbane City, Queensland, Australia, 4000. 3.3 - Last up-dated: 04:37, 18.08.2024, Australian Eastern Standard Time.
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§4.0 - MADAM BLANC'S TROOP OF WITCHES AND MODERN WOMEN—Refer to Points 4.0–4.28.
4.1 - Similar to the erased subject of the Anti-Christ within Dario Argento's film: 4.2 - Mother Of Tears, 6 September 2007, Toronto International Film Festival, 141:38 minutes—the subject of the changeling is suggested as mostly censored from the narrative of the Three Mothers' Trilogy. 4.3 - While Alberto, acted by Jacopo Mariani, a fair-haired boy of approximately ten years of age, appears as a changeling and witch's familiar in the film: 4.4 - Suspiria, 1 February 1977, premiere at Italy, 99 minutes—the figure of the child as having no relation to the witches emerges as a repressed discourse in the revised film by Luca Guadagnino. 4.5 - Again, I take an approach I have implemented in my previous blogs of film-based criticism, that the matter of the changeling or some mythic, monstrous male figure, such as Mephistopheles, emerges as an out-standing matter: argumentum ex silentio; that the changeling's absence in the narrative and its filmic treatment causes for a redoubled focus on the subject and the reasons for its censorship. 4.6 - An immediate explanation that comes to mind for such absence is that this film allows a singular focus on the so-called modern woman, who, while not of Nazi Germany exactly, is summoned by the centre-piece, theatrical dance by the dance company at the Markos Tanz Akademie, during circa 1977, to cause for a return of the modern woman as a cultural identity of the Nazi Germans associated with folk-lore and Neo-Paganism / Satanism. 4.7 - Specifically, a particular type of Northern European female warrior and heroine: a valkyrie, a figure from the Old Norse culture, valkyrja, that refers literally to a "chooser of the slain", viz. women who, similar to a chorus, select who is to be slain, such that the film's endorsed version of a modern woman is startlingly different from "the wife" and "mother" of the Christian bible—refer to the point 4.8, directly beneath, regarding the title of the film subject of criticism here: 4.8 - Suspiria, 1 September 2018, premiere at the Venice Film Festival, 152 minutes, directed By Luca Guadagnino. 4.9 - The women who manage the Markos Tanz Akademie, Berlin, Germany, circa 1977, are involved in the "forging" of a modern, rather than anything naturally develop or develop from arts and crafts, viz. a modern woman along the lines and practices of Germany during the 1910s, a time of the first world war and the avant garde Expressionist intellectual and art movement. 4.10 - The dance of the film, Völk, is itself reminiscent of the Expressionistic theatrical piece: 4.11 - Murderer, The Hope Of Women, circa 1909, by the artist Oskar Kokoshka—refer to: ‎Oskar Kokoschka: Plays & Poems, 1 January 2001, Ariadne Press; Britain edition, English Language, hard-cover, 250 pages, ISBN-10 1572410418, ISBN-13 9781572410411. 4.12 - A play that, while involves icons of the city, viz. tower and cage, is invested with expressive, magical primitivism as of the Antediluvian. 4.13 - The dance for which the dancers rehearse and later perform in the film finds a definitive structure of lines of the choreographic, visibly taped-down to the dance-floor, creating an out-line of a diagram such as that used by witches in casting a spell, for example a "magic circle", and the geometry of it bestows an almost machine-type quality to the "troupe". 4.14 - Refer to the two film stills directly beneath of the dancers as they dance Völk on a large hex.
4.15 - The dancing troupe of dance artists is thus transformed from the representation of Catholic German folk-loric witches, that is, of Mother Holle's spinning and weaving spirit world, and they become the troop of warriors or soldiers as referred to in: The Book Of Nahum 3:13: 4.16 - 'Behold, your troops are women in your midst. The gates of your land are wide open to your enemies; fire has devoured your bars'—from: The Book Of Nahum 3:13, English Standard Version. 4.17 - While Nahum's allusion to the Assyrian city of Nineveh is to its being open and vulnerable to attack—phrased in a manner that perceives women as weak—such a line of the bible may be read in a subverted sense to signify a very literal definition that: the women are troops in our midst. 4.18 - The reference to the Assyrian involves ancient history that juxtaposes to this pervasive notion of modernity in the film, unless the Ancient Assyrians, that is the Aryans, who are connected to witch-craft can transcend the limits of time as if by magic! 4.19 - It would seem a plausible enough thought to consider because the film represents Aryans as steeped in Neo-Paganic or Satanic lore, and which find expression in not only constructed art-forms of dance, but further film—the illusory film-still that when repeated 24 frames per second creates a flickering bedazzlement, an alchemy of filmic montage—and further yet, architecture, such as epitomised by the building of the Markos Tanz Akademie in its construction of ancient temple-type forms with bold geometric modernism. 4.20 - That is, women's modernity is not necessarily all about "arts and crafts", though it peculiarly re-finds the art theme of the still life, the vogue of pose or the male dance partner's status as little more than a style of men's bouquet de corsage worn on his jacket on the dance floor—it can be about power. 4.21 - The film's director, Luca Guadagnino, has used the 'Grand Hotel Campo dei Fiori / Field of Flowers', at Varese, Lombardy—by the architecture firm: Adolf Loos’s Goldman & Salatsch Building—as the setting of the Markos Tanz Akademie / coven—supposedly it is digitally transposed to Cold-War Berlin—portrays the building's entrance as monumental and powerful, with four pillars, evocative of a temple of Isis, which appear to guard the front door-way, and inside, the foyer is revealed to have a secret observatory deck behind a wall mirror, such that the witches may be considered as looking through walls; looking through looking glasses, both "magically" and politically. 4.22 - Refer to the two film stills beneath of Susie arriving at the Tanz Akademie and inside the foyer.
4.23 - Later, the secret spaces of the coven are revealed whereby a shift of focus from the political tensions incurred by the Cold War—with moments of back-ground news reporting on the true, historical terrorist attacks of "The German Autumn" of circa 1977—to a cultural, spiritual focus that provides a divide / wall between the two categories of life: political / cultural, that may be merely conceits of sociological theory: at least, that is inferred by this film. 4.24 - At the monumental Markos Tanz Akademie women are forged in to different sorts of women as: dancing warriors and witches, but the transformation occurs in the secret spaces of Berlin, Germany, such that a particular matter of conspiratorial complicity is required—and it is this "keeping stüm", this secrecy that is quite a different scenario displayed by another film based in Germany also celebrating modernism: 4.25 - Metropolis, 10 January 1927, 153 minutes, directed by the German expressionist film-maker, Fritz Lang. 4.26 - In the film, the female robot is constructed, originally out of a love for a deceased sweet-heart: the robot resembling her is shown constructed in a temple of Moloch, an Ancient Assyrian god of child sacrifice, where it is all upon the city's public stage to show and witness. 4.27 - Refer to a film still from: Metropolis, 10 January 1927, 153 minutes, directly beneath, in which Satanic iconography, viz. a luminous sign of an inverted pentagram is on the wall behind a shrine used by the city's wealthy elite.
4.28 - The women of: Suspiria, 1 September 2018, 152 minutes, are far from the dehumanised, iron-clad form of the robot; rather their "humanism" is retained, no matter how questionable, by the practice of their folk-lorism and dancing within the modern contexts, as post-modernism during the 1970s, the period during which the film is set, and yet the film is stark for its absence of children at the Markos Tanz Akademie, as though the children are hidden away somewhere, because I have always found: wherever there are women, there are children.
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§5.0 - THE IRON-MAIDEN'S VICE-GRIP OF MATER SUSPIRIORUM—Refer to Points 5.0–5.18.
5.1 - In reference to the vision of the future, modern woman—a subject of Luca Guadagnino's film of 2018—as constructed from the metaphorical substance of iron, there exists a recurring symbol of iron as impervious to the human condition yet lived by humans as though beyond guilt, such as by the famed iron-man, the über-mensch, viz. the super-human being imparted by the iron machine the perception that he (or she) himself (or herself) is as an extension of the iron machine. 5.2 - The ancient Roman / Phrygian / Trojan god: 'Vulcan', is associated with the fire of volcanoes, deserts, and particularly metal-working and the forge, and is the focalizer of the life-giving and destructive force of fire with iron—the explosive force that shapes the weapon and explodes through the weapon—such that from the Christian perspective, Vulcan is yet another permutation of Satan. 5.3 - The modern woman constructed from iron, other than the robot, is thus the weapon of Satan: the witch, whose approach to motherhood and love is void. 5.4 - There is a pagan reference to iron in the feminine as the torture device of the iron maiden supposedly of the 19th-century that derives from the Punic city of Carthage—as described in the Carthaginian execution of Marcus Atilius Regulus, a general who opted for an honourable execution rather than flee his punishment per Tertullian's An Address To The Martyrs, Chapter 4: 5.5 - 'Regulus, a general of the Romans, taken prisoner by the Carthaginians, when he would not have his single self ransomed at the price of many Carthaginian prisoners, preferred being given back to the enemy, and being crammed in to a sort of chest, and pierced on every side with nails from without, experienced so many crucifixions, page 156'—refer to the website: 'Tertullian.com' the web-page: An Address To The Martyrs, accessed 12 March 2024, from the URL: <https://www.tertullian.org/articles/lof/martyrs.htm>. 5.6 - For corroboration refer to: 5.7 - Saint Augustine of Hippo's The City of God, Book 1, Chapter 15, in which a similar description of an iron maiden used on Regulus is discussed to exert the most painful of deaths upon him or her whom choses nobility above the advantageous. 5.8 - Refer to: The City Of God by Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, republished circa 2000, New York: Modern Library, xx, 903 pages; 21 centimeters, ISBN: 0679783199. 5.9 - Arguably, the Punic / Hunic peoples sought to erase hope in their enemy, to affect soullessness, that is, the state of being undead, and this is analogous to the effects of the vice-grip of "the iron maiden" as Mater Suspiriorum constructs impossible circumstances from which suicide or execution must suffice, or an act of conversion in becoming the opposite of what one truly is. 5.10 - In further reference to: Suspiria, 1 September 2018, 152 minutes, an iron is used as the object of punishment to Susie by her mother who slams a clothes iron on to her hand after being caught masturbating in a closet—the narrative is aligned to perceptions of Christianity as part of an ideology that imprisons women in to domesticity, (ironic, since the dancers are ensnared by a coven)—but iron is such that it spans both cultures to act as a medium through which the construction of girls' and women's psychology is achieved. 5.11 - Yet to turn attention to iron as properly a Satanic symbol, the iron of the Holy Nails of the "Arma Christi": the instruments of: The Passion Of Jesus Christ, represent the nails that bound Jesus Christ to the crucifix, used for inflicting torture, as a subversion: a conversion of the Christian relics for Satanic purposes. 5.12 - Susie is a young woman whose life is about to launch upon a dancing career, rather than she be shown in the midst of things, the prime of her life, and she has that uncanny know-how, or demonstrates special abilities, viz. "talent", such as in reference to dance, and changelings are known for their strange difference, that is, other than a birth-mark, deformity or impairment of some kind. 5.13 - There is no conclusion to draw exactly on the question as to whether she is a changeling, because Dakota Johnson also later acts as Mother Suspiriorum to signalize she is a "witch convert"—remarkably from an Amish family: Susie releases her Amish mother to become motherless, and subsequently, herself the great mother, Mater Suspiriorum. 5.14 - The inference is, Christian girls are not only poached for becoming part of the dance troupe and coven, but the Christian women accept the burden to hold the evil in its controlled form, the iron maiden's vice-grip of circumstance that attempts to prevent unwanted creativity and change. 5.15 - Implicit to this iron maiden's control over acts of conversion and change or transformation is the "preconceived child", the precocious child; the changeling—such as to deem: who is a witch; who is a familiar; who is a satyr, etc., though the satyrs arguably stay behind the scenes as perennial scene shifters. 5.16 - For a definite sense of the preconceived child refer to the film: 5.17 - The Baby Of Mâcon, 17 May 1993, 122 minutes, premiere at Cannes Film Festival, directed by Peter Greenaway. 5.18 - In the context of the cult, the preconceived child is an obvious aspect of life, though exists in contemporary society in less obvious ways.
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§6.0 - THE BIBLE, MYTHIC DISCOURSE, CHILD SACRIFICE AND CANNIBALISM—Refer to Points 6.0–6.31.
6.1 - In the structure of the folk-lore of Mother Holle, similarities exist in the structure of the film: Suspiria, 1 September 2018, 152 minutes, where the hulden are to Mother Holle, what the dancing troupe are to Madame Blanc, as acted by Tilda Swinton. 6.2 - The folk-lore of Mother Holle may not be known to everyone and it is worth commentary to reveal the mother figure of Madame Blanc as similar to the goddess to whom children who died as infants go—possibly as an effect of mütterrecht / mother right: the witches' dance is for electing who is to be slain, regarding which refer to: 6.3 - Johann Jakob Bachofen's anthropological text: Das Mutterrecht, circa 1861—refer to: Das Mutterrecht: Eine Untersuchung Über Die Gynaikokratie Der Alten Welt Nach Ihrer Religiösen Und Rechtlichen Natur, circa 1993, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 416 pages, ISBN:  3518277359, ISBN: 9783518277355—and Madame Blanc is alternatively known as both the 'Dunkle Großmutter / Dark Grandmother' and the 'Weisse Frau / White Lady': characters more associated with the Grimms' fairy tale in: 6.4 - Children's And Household Tales, circa 1812, Number 24, Aarne-Thompson Type 480, also known as the tale of The Spinning Women By The Well—refer to: The Grimm Brothers' Children's and Household Tales (Grimms' Fairy Tales), compiled, translated, and classified by D.L. Ashliman, circa 1998–2020, sourced 05.08.2024, at the URL: <https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/grimmtales.html>6.5 - The character of Tilda Swinton's Madame Blanc is an androgyne—markedly different to Joan Geraldine Bennett's Madame Blanc as an older femme fatale styled mistress of Dario Argento's film circa 1977—yet neither really not motherly at all, but she is considered a variation of Mother Holle / White Goddess, that in the Ancient Ayran / Punic terms may be a permutation of Molech ('MLK' in Punic language; pronouced: 'milk') to whom children are sarcificed, as attested by the bible's books of: Leviticus, 1 Kings, 2 Kings and Jeremiah—for example: 6.6 - 'And [Josiah] defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech'— from: 2 Kings 23:10, English Standard Version; a line that bears greater significance in relation to: 2 Kings 23:13, in which the noun: 'abomination' refers to an omen, that may be a sign itself taken to represent the loathed thing, supposedly necessitating destruction. 6.7 - There is the other allusion recalled here of: The Book Of Nahum 3:13, of the women seen as going through the "open gates" to bring the magic of fire with them to the land of the enemy, as a sort of disguised acceptance of the enemy, that is an inversion of the rejection of the child abomination. 6.8 - Yet the Berlin Wall portrayed in the film: Suspiria, 1 September 2018, 152 minutes, remains a concrete reminder to the witches that the division of Western and Eastern Worlds remains in place, unless it is asked: "was the Berlin Wall merely another case of the painted veil—another illusion created by illusionists?" 6.9 - The rite of "passing through fire" such as involved in the rites of worship of Molech suggest a spiritual belief of fire's "purifying effects", of the returning of substance to ashes and dust, and further in this context, is equivalent to an exorcism of "the abomination" that is in their culture, the child of mixed ethnicity, often born out of prostitution; the so-called illegitimate or bastard child is involved in a rite of cleansing—while furnished in religious terms, it is nonetheless indicative of ethnic genocide. 6.10 - Fire symbolizes the destructive aspect of "mother nature", 'Demeter / Ceres / Isis', to which Molech is associated; as the bull, the feminine aspect of death expressed in Molech is similarly manifested in the rites and myth of the minotaur. 6.11 - The King Minos punished the Athenians for the death of his son, Prince Androgeus, by demanding regular sacrifice to the Minotaur at the labyrinth, Crete, viz. seven male youths and seven maidens; Athenian children—refer to the film for a narration of the myth: 6.12 - Minotaur, 11 March 2006, the United States of America, 93 minutes, directed by Jonathan English. 6.13 - The bull's horns create a shape of the crescent moon and is believed to be the son of the white, moon goddess: 'Selene / Luna / Men' Madame Blanc. 6.14 - There is further the symbol of the crocodile as the great beast of the waters, 'Leviathan / the Kraken', lurking beneath the surface, similar to Mater Suspiriorum who is revealed only a few times during the film of 2018, who is further Demeter in her destructive aspect—unleashed by the god of the waters, 'Poseidon / Neptune' as the hulking fish / creature that devours the sacrifice, that is of a mythos that informs more recent, celebrated narratives for children, such as in: 6.15 - Peter Pan; Or, The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, circa 1904, often known as "Peter Pan", a play by J.M. Barrie. 6.16 - Later written as the novel: Peter and Wendy, circa 1911, by J.M. Barrie, in: Peter Pan: Peter And Wendy And Peter Pan In Kensington Gardens, circa 2004, Penguin Books Limited, 272 pages, ISBN-10: 014243793X, ISBN-13: 9780142437933. 6.17 - The accursed child is comparable to the boy, the character of Damien in the film: 6.18 - The Omen, 6 June 1976, premiere Britain, 111 minutes, directed by Richard Donner—at least as the text entertains a Catholic inspired interpretation, the destructive force of Satan is symbolically invested in Damien, who is swapped at birth in the place of a dead child, similar to how the changeling is always swapped during infancy, to connect both the Anti-Christ and changeling to the status of the accursed child: as the unwanted or orphaned child, who are really symbols of the unknown that presages of change, albeit abhorred. 6.19 - Such mythos of the child sacrifice, as mentioned, is repressed, wholly or partially, for a focus on the witch, such as in the film: Suspiria, 1 September 2018, 152 minutes—thus, to excavate such repressed aspects of the narrative, it is logically inferred, the changelings are kept until a certain age, viz. Alberto being ten years old, partially hidden at another "secret secret" space—similar to the "holiest of holies"—possibly as a type of unrecognised slave labour performed by children. 6.20 - To return to arguably the founding narrative of: The Spinning-Woman By The Spring, also known as: The Kind And The Unkind Girls—suggested as derived from the Parable Of The Wise And Foolish Virgins, a parable from Jesus Christ, according to Matthew 25:1–13there is a division in the narrative between two girls who attend the witch's house, that is done consecutively, to work, often having to perform impossible tasks; the kind girl is rewarded for speaking to the animals—and the girl who is not so kind, is indicated as the accursed, destined to a lot of slavery, and possibly the one deemed the changeling, is defective in some secret way other than temperament. 6.21 - The folk-tale suggests that Susie has had an earlier version of herself attend the Markos Tanz Akademie and "go through" similar ordeals, only to find herself failed and trapped in a slave's existence—and somehow the witch is able to keep Susie and the other girls ignorant of the fact; it is after all a huge building with various spaces, revealed and concealed. 6.22 - Alberto's counter-part in the third film, Michael Pierce's abducted son, Paul Pierce, acted by Luca Pescatore, is later eaten raw by the coven of the catacomb—presumably quenched by the fire of their bellies. 6.23 - As obscene as many moments are in Luca Guadagnino's film of 2018, the old woman of the German folk tale: Hansel And Gretel, surfaces because that old woman is revealed to be a witch, who entices both children in to her forest cottage to eat—for a filmic version refer to: 6.24 - Hansel And Gretel, 31 January 2020, 87 minutes, directed by Osgood Perkins, based on the eponymous tale compiled by the Brothers Grimm and published circa 1812 as number 15 of Grimms' Fairy Tales. 6.25 - The obscenity of cannibalism is not shown in the film of 2018, but it is shown in Luca Guadagnino's later film: 6.26 - Bones And All, 2 September 2022, premiere at the Venice Film Festival, 130 minutes, that centers on the subject of cannibalism, to comprise the ambit of Luca Guadagnino's reportoire. 6.27 - I return to that subject discussed in my blogs in reference to the Irish film: 6.28 - You Are Not My Mother, 13 September 2021, premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, 93 minutes, directed by Kate Dolan, viz. the Pied Piper of Hamlin, in which a "magic pipe" is used in a falsely established premise of revenge upon a township to beguile the town's children to their fall, viz. sexual abuse; abductions for trafficking to foreign places; early death. 6.29 - On this last point refer to: <https://thoughtsdisjectamembra.blogspot.com/2022/06/craig-steven-joseph-laceys-part-v.html>. 6.30 - The pied piper is perhaps that fatalistic satyr of Dionysus, viz. Silenus with a tibia / flute? who is paraphrased in Aristotle's Eudemus / Of the Soul, as commenting to King Midas after being captured by him and interrogated: 6.31 - "Ephemeral offspring of a travailing genius and of harsh fortune, why do you force me to speak what it were better for you men not to know? For a life spent in ignorance of one's own woes is most free from grief. But for men it is utterly impossible that they should obtain the best thing of all, or even have any share in its nature (for the best thing for all men and women is not to be born); however, the next best thing to this, and the first of those to which man can attain, but nevertheless only the second best, is, after being born, to die as quickly as possible." It is evident, therefore, that he made this declaration with the conviction that existence after death is better than that in life"—from: Plutarch's Moralia, Consolatio ad Apollonium, §XXVII, 1st century A.D., Volume 10, Loeb Classical Library Number 321, circa 1936, Greek and English Edition, hard-cover, 491 pages, ISBN-10: 0674993543, ISBN-13: 9780674993549, or: at Bill Thayer's website, sourced from the URL: <https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Consolatio_ad_Apollonium*.html>.
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§7.0 - INFLUENCES OF SATANISM—Refer to Points 7.0–7.28.
7.1 - The notion of "Satanists" operating clandestine cults within various church affiliated organisations—in fact, the church—remains shrouded as a matter at all to consider. 7.2 - The modern position and role of Nuns' Convents and Orphanages are very far from sight in the context of the Three Mothers' Trilogy, including this fourth re-make of the first film, but representation of the Satanic within such places of the Church is found in films such as: 7.3 - Black Narcissus 24 April 1947, premiere at London, Britain, 100 minutes, directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and more recently: 7.4 - The Nun, 4 September 2018, premiere at the Grauman's Chinese Theatre / TCL Chinese Theatre, Hollywood, 96 minutes, directed by Corin Hardy and the sequel: 7.5 - The Nun II, 8 September 2023, 110 minutes, directed by Michael Chaves. 7.6 - The corrosion of Christian (and Jewish) institutions of care of children has been a subject of films such as: 7.7 - Spotlight, 3 September 2015, premiere at the Venice Film Festival, 129 minutes, directed by Tom McCarthy. 7.8 - In Australia the Royal Commission In To Institutional Responses To Child Sexual Abuse, 13 January 2013 – 15 December 2017, established by the Prime Minister Julia Gillard, published findings which showed that child abuse was pervasive in almost all forms of child care—upon the Forgotten Australians—not only the Catholic Church: 7.9 - 'More than one in three survivors (36.0 per cent) said they were sexually abused in pre-1990 out-of-home care – primarily in residential institutions, such as children’s homes, missions or reformatories. Just under one-third (31.8 per cent) said they were abused in a school, and 14.5 per cent said they were abused while involved in religious activities, such as attending a church or seminary. More than one in five survivors (21.0 per cent) said they were sexually abused in more than one institution'—from: FINAL REPORT, Preface and executive summary, circa 2017, by the Royal Commission In To Institutional Responses To Child Sexual Abuse, 228 pages, ISBN 9781925622485. 7.10 - There are few films on this deplorable history, though one is: 7.11 - Oranges And Sunshine, 8 October 2010, premiere at the Pusan International Film Festival, Pusan, South Korea, 105 minutes, directed by Jim Loach, with a script by Rona Munro, based on: 7.12 - Empty Cradles, circa 1994, by Margaret Humphreys, Doubleday, hard-cover, 329 pages, ISBN-10: 0385404522, ISBN-13 9780385404525, in which the abuses are narrated of "Home Children", viz. white, vagrant children from Britain, after their re-location to nations, such as Australia—for child slavery. 7.13 - As to how Irish Catholic institutions, such as the Congregation of Christian Brothers, to which "Home Children" were sent at Bindoon, Western Australia, were left unquestioned as places without corruption from within by Neo-pagans or Satanists, possibly remains a matter that is part of a larger conspiracy of persecution against mostly white, Irish Christians. 7.14 - When such matters are questioned, it is with partial or improbable evidence, subject to censorship and repression, when it is often said: "it is too late," that is, to infer genocide has already taken place, otherwise the persecuted people would be able to petition against any future occurrence: "lest we forget." 7.15 - The general consensus is that through the modernism of the 20th-century the Christian church and possibly Jewish Synagogues fell to forms of the Satanic attached to notions of secular, State liberalism and technology's so-called modern conveniences, for a subversion of mostly Christian organisations. 7.16 - The Satanic malapropriation of Catholic Christianity has been recognised in the 'Black Mass' as documented in texts dating from the 4th century, as detailed by Epiphanius of Salamis in: 7.17 - Panarion, circa 375, a treatise of heresies that treats eighty religious cults, either organized groups or philosophies, in which their histories and beliefs, that is, Satanic heresies of Christianity are nothing new. 7.18 - Refer to: The Panarion Of Epiphanius Of Salamis, 310–403 A.D., re-published circa 1987, by Saint Epiphanius, Bishop of Constantia, Cyprus, Leiden; New York: E.J. Brill, 704 pages, ISBN 9004079262, ISBN 9789004079267, ISBN 9004098984,
ISBN 9789004098985. 7.19 - Arguably, the Satanic heresies re-emerged at approximately the time when the French aristocrat, the Marquis de Sade published: 7.20 - Justine, Or, The Misfortunes Of Virtue, circa 1797, republished circa 2012, Oxford: Oxford University Press, xiiv, 273 pages, ISBN 9780199572847, and: 7.21 - Juliette, circa 1801, republished circa 2007, Arrow Books Limited, hard-cover, 1216 pages, ISBN-10: 0099517671, ISBN 13: 9780099517672—that accompanied de Sade's text Justine: one text, a biography of a virtuous woman, the other a biography of Justine's sister: Juliette, an immoral hedonist: perhaps, yet another permutation of the parable of ten virgins? 7.22 - In the anthropological text: The Golden Bough, circa 1890, by J.G. Frazer, re-published as: The Golden Bough: A Study In Magic And Religion, 13 Volume, circa 1976, Britain: Macmillan, Third Edition, ISBN: 0333012828. ISBN/EAN: 978033301282, James Frazer described an unusual French legend of the Mass of Saint-Sécaire that contains similarities to the Black Mass. 7.23 - Further along fictional premises: 7.24 - Là-Bas, / Down There, circa 1891, by the French author, Joris-Karl Huysmans, re-published 20 April 2017, Read Books, 282 pages, ISBN: 9781473337190, a novel that praises Satan for his rationalism.
7.25 - Refer to the film: The Devils 16 July 1971, the United States of America, 111 minutes, produced and directed by Ken Russell, based on the non-fictional text by Aldous Huxley: 7.26 - The Devils Of Loudun, circa 1952, re-published: 7 April 2005, Random House, Imprint: Vintage Classics, 22nd Edition, English Language, 376 pages, 9780099477761, that narrates the persecution of Urbain Grandier, a 17th-century Roman Catholic priest accused of Satanism, after a series of dæmonic possessions at Loudun, France, a persecutory attack devised by Sister Jeanne des Anges, a nun who despite being a nun, uses a bone to curse blameless Christian men. 7.27 - Arguably, Satanic primitivism is only truly revealed by Georges Bataille, a past priest given over the Satanic, who published texts of Satanic ritual, such as: 7.28 - The Blue Of Noon / French: Le Bleu du Ciel, circa 1937, pages 155, ISBN: 9780893960049, in which necrophilia is the subject of the narrative.
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§8.0 - RELIGIOUS SOCIETY HAS BECOME A DIFFUSION OF CULTS—Refer to Points 8.0–8.21.
8.1 - In reality the girls and women of such cults, of which finds representation in Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria, 1 September 2018, 152 minutes, are often inter-related as aunts, half-sisters, and cousins of varying degrees, an aspect that the Three Mothers' Trilogy of films disguise, and on that basis of blood ties, rather than secular law preside, familial house rule presides. 8.2 - Comparisons can be made to the infamous cults of "The Family"—a phrase often used as an euphemism for "the mafia"—led by Anne Hamilton-Byrne at Ferny Creek, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, and included others at a psychiatric hospital, Newhaven, Kew, London, Britain, from circa 1964 to circa 1987—various members were found liable for embezzlement, illegal adoptions, abuses of psychiatric and psychological treatments, malnourishment, etc.—a history of which is used as the basis of an Australian psychological-thriller genre mini-series: 8.3 - The Clearing, 24 May 2023–, directed by Jeffrey Walker and Gracie Otto, produced for Disney+ and Hulu, based on: 8.4 - In The Clearing, circa 2020, by J. P. Pomare, Little, Brown, 352 pages, ISBN: 0316462950, ISBN:  9780316462952—that narrates of the cult's coercive, brain-washing culture. 8.5 - There is a similar use of the verb / noun: 'clear'—also a synonym to the Chinese term: "xinao", to: "clear the brain"—used in reference to the title of the documentary about the cult-type organisation of The Church Of Scientology: 8.6 - Going Clear: Scientology And The Prison Of Belief, 25 January 2015, premiere at Sundance Film Festival, 120 minutes, directed by Alex Gibney—the organisation was criticised for being a criminal organisation by the Australian senator, Nick Xenophon, that the New South Wales Police were supposed to investigate—refer to: "Xenophon attacks Church of Scientology, 22:00, 17.11.2009 up-dated, 06:57, 18.11.2009", Australian Broadcasting News website, accessed 06.08.2024, from URL: <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-11-17/xenophon-attacks-church-of-scientology/1146154>. 8.7 - Further there is the infamous Californian 'The Manson Family, circa 1967–circa 1970'—in which the charismatic leader, Charles Manson, organised for terrorist crimes, including assassinations, for example, of the actor Sharon Tate. 8.8 - Regarding which, refer to: Helter Skelter, 16 May 2004, 137 minutes, D.V.D., a television film written and directed by John Gray. 8.9 - In Luca Guadagnino's film of 2018, the Soviet dancer, Olga Ivanova, acted by Elena Fokina, is cruelly rejected by the Markos Tanz Akademie, supplanted by Susie Bannion (the dazzling new-comer), and Olga then is subjected to a violent death—prima facie, Olga suffers for no longer being part of "the dancing family", an epithet regarding which must be considered only superficially familial because of Olga's murder. 8.10 - Arguably, Olga is considered vain because her murder occurs in front of the dance hall's mirrors, and prior to Olga's murder, another dancer, resembling her as might a double, gazes at her and laughs hysterically: a moment that again alludes to the Parable Of The Wise And Foolish Virgins8.11 - Olga supposedly has become foolishly involved in under-ground political activism at Berlin, possibly itself considered vanity—but vanity is no reason for execution, yet the radicalism of the witch religion is shown to kill. 8.12 - The more plausible suggestion is, Olga is considered by the Satanist cult to be a martyr as set forth in the Anabaptists' text of pacifist Christians: 8.13 - The Bloody Theater Or Martyrs Mirror Of The Defenseless Christians Who Baptized Only Upon Confession Of Faith, And Who Suffered And Died For The Testimony Of Jesus, Their Saviour, From The Time Of Christ To The Year 1660 A.D., regarding which refer to an illustration from this text directly beneath:
8.14 - Acknowledge that this text differs from: Actes And Monuments Of These Latter And Perillous Days, Touching Matters Of The Church, circa 1563, known as Foxe's Book Of Martyrs by John Day, because the Anabaptists were strictly pacifists and demonstrated no resistance to their torture or killing. 8.15 - This is an interpretation that confers with the film's other subtext regarding the division of the Amish and Mennonites that emerges because Susie's character is from an Amish home, often portrayed by inter-woven sequences in the flash-back convention of film. 8.16 - Presumably, Olga was from a dedicated commune of Christian families, similar to Susie, such that the Markos Tanz Akademie, a cult of Neo-pagans witches, are indicated as poaching girls from Christian families around the world for professional dance, only to terrorise them. 8.17 - It ought to be commented that under the thinly defined similarities of kinship and the career and business of dance, abuse is only thinly perpetrated: when brought out of the hidden places the difference of religious identity provides for grounds to argue that abuse is defined as persecution, such that the terms of terrorism is shifted to politics. 8.18 - As only briefly mentioned, the film is set during that specific epoch of "The German Autumn" of circa 1977, when a series of terrorist attacks caused for the murders of Siegfried Buback, the attorney-general of West Germany, and the banker, Jürgen Ponto, and further, the deaths of ten Red Army Faction members at Stammheim Prison, Stuttgart, Baden Württemberg, Germany. 8.19 - The politics and history is narrated in the film as a peripheral concern to the mysterious occurrences of the Markos Tanz Akademie: with a newspaper on the matter shown during one scene; a television incidentally over-heard reporting the matter; the palette of autumnal colours to define the look and feel of the film, allude to the title of the historical events of "The German Autumn". 8.20 - The leap to make in perception that classifies one style of terrorism as terrorism and the other style of terrorism as thrilling and artistic, involves the acknowledgement that Christians are really persecuted within such contexts. 8.21 - The concern of Satanic subversion to Christendom was prevalent during the time represented by the film, circa 1977, but as a widely accepted concern now appears to have been diffused, that is, diversified in to many different cults of different cultural definition of which Western World democracies are tolerant.
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§9.0 - LIFE AFTER THE ARTIFICIAL APOCALYPSE—Refer to Points 9.0–9.17.
9.1 - At some point in time the artificial apocalypse occurred and I am not necessarily referring to the second world war or Vietnam War, but something along the lines of: 9.2 - Le Dernier Homme / English: The Last Man, circa 1805, republished 15 January 2003, Wesleyan University Press; English Language‎, hard-cover‎, 220 pages, ISBN-10‎: 0819565490, ISBN-13‎: 978-0819565495—a French science fiction novel in prose poem form by Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville. 9.3 - Censorship and the control of culture has caused for a collective amnesia of an artificial or human-made apocalypse to cause for post-apocalytic times. 9.4 - Memory erasure in varying forms is normative for some classes of people due to prevalent abuses within the family, religion or from governmental institutions, and such practices are often involved with brain-washing: an aspect of the cult represented in Luca Guadagnino's film of 2018. 9.5 - Madame Blanc's control, with Miss Tanner, acted by Angela Winkler, over the dancers is facilitated through dance instruction / indoctrination upon the women's minds and bodies, but that level of control extends to intrusion in to space, camera shots are taken outside of scenes of intimate conversation, as to indicate some-one is always over-hearing or observing on as relentless surveillance, to the umcanny activity of Madame Blanc indicates to "telepathically" send dreams to each of the women, an experience they may believe through their exposure to laudanum, or other drugging, suggested as committed by the witches—and refer to a 50 seconds clip from the film beneath of the sent dream from us, the witches.
9.6 - "Brain-washing", or the more recent term: "re-education", is often considered to occur along the lines of those narrated in films such as: 9.7 - The Manchurian Candidate 24 October 1962, 126 minutes, directed and produced by John Frankenheimer; 9.8 - that is based on the eponymous novel of circa 1959 by Richard Condon, re-published: circa 1981, Charnwood, hard-cover, 408 pages, ISBN-10: 0708980112, ISBN-13: 9780708980118. 9.9 - "Brain-washing" occurs in cult types of social organisation, which are supposedly wide-spread throughout many nations of the Western World, and that are detached from the Church in seemingly undirected chaos, may implement psychological forms of war-fare: humiliation, ostracism, isolation, threatening, slandering, over-surveillance, exposure, sleeplessness, frightening, aggrandising, misinforming, sexual and physical violence, torture, etc., that outrageously have been, to an extent, normalised through cult-type "hazing", abuse rituals and endorsement of coercive forms of peer-group pressure, such as portrayed and exploited in the: 9.10 - Big Brother, a reality television franchise created by John de Mol Junior, broadcast at the Netherlands, circa 1999 and subsequently syndicated internationally—with various other reality television shows. 9.11 - Refer to: Brainwashing: The Science Of Thought Control, 16 December 2004, by Kathleen Taylor, Oxford University Press, English Language, hard-cover, 336 pages, ISBN: 0-19-280496-0. 9.12 - Arguably, a key attribute to the group's mentality that transforms everyday competitive taunting or teasing in to abuse or persecution are belief systems which irrationally elect some-one as the cause of all problems; as the person responsible for bringing unwanted change, such as "the changeling", who is made the scape-goat, rather than leadership be found to examine its own forms of moral disengagement and take responsibility for the injustices permitted to be committed by the counter-part of the changeling: Asterion / Lucifer, the minotaur, part-man / part-bull, who is a half-blood or changeling too—the existing system of so-called traditions is illusory for its balances, because behind it another system exists that is far greater in freedoms of thought and act. 9.13 - Perhaps the most soulless of films is: A Clockwork Orange, 19 December 1971, premiere at New York City, 136 minutes, adapted, produced, and directed by Stanley Kubrick?—based on: 9.14 - Anthony Burgess's eponymous novel circa 1962; re-published: circa 1987, W.W. Norton And Company, 192 pages, ISBN-10: 0393024393, ISBN-13: 9780393024395—that heralds a new era of soulless, tribal instinctualism and violence with allusions to the Satanic that astrides the film's rationalised discourses of medical and governmental control as smothering and mortifying. 9.15 - Yet, when the existence of Saint Nicholas "Santa Claus" is represented as at stake, the attack on love and the gift of charity, portrayed in the film: 9.16 - Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, 24 September 2010, premiere at the Austin Fantastic Fest, 82 minutes, directed by Jalmari Helander—there is an over-riding sense that we live in the times after the artificial / human-made apocalypse. 9.17 - There are many texts of the dystopia of now, as though hope and faith were folly or madness and my remembrance of being persecuted as a changeling is quite normal, though on the latter point, there are few texts, or if there are texts on the subject, they are censored to myself.
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§10.0 - COMMENTS ON THE FILM'S SOUND-TRACK: 'SUSPIRIA (MUSIC FOR THE LUCA GUADAGNINO FILM), RELEASED 26 OCTOBER 2018, BY THOM YORKE'—Refer to Points 10.0–10.18.
10.1 - The score titled: Suspiria (Music for the Luca Guadagnino Film), released 26 October 2018, for the film: Suspiria, 1 September 2018, 152 minutes, directed by Luca Guadagnino, was produced through the independent record label: 'XL Recordings', owned by the Beggars Group, that has worked with the British musician, Thomas Edward Yorke, known as "Thom Yorke", for his band Radiohead, is a partnership again established here, in which Thom Yorke provides a dystopic, deconstructed mix of the electronica and experimental rock genres. 10.2 - Thom Yorke has cited for inspiration the ambient, new age and electronica genre-based sound-track: Blade Runner: Original Motion Picture Sound-track, 6 June 1994, 57:39 minutes, by the musician Vangelis' for the film: 10.3 - Blade Runner, 25 June 1982, United States of America, 117 minutes, directed by Ridley Scott. 10.4 - With haunting ambience, yet seductive sounds, such as a lone saxophone, these sounds are of the atmospherics of the mystery-requiring-a-solution: the basis of all film noir and giallo. 10.5 - The artists of Musique Concrète, a style of which the composer Irwin Bazelon referred to as a "sound collage" first used in the film: 10.6 - Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, 24 December 1931, premiere at Los Angeles, 96 minutes, directed by Rouben Mamoulian—to include artists, such as: 10.7 - Pierre Henry, 9 December 1927 – 5 July 2017, such as: Symphonie Pour Un Homme Seul / Symphony For One Man Alone, circa 1950, also by Pierre Schaeffer, in which raw sounds are integrated in to the composition10.8 - The modern electronica, such as: 10.9 - the trance and minimal techno of the British disk jockey: James Holden, 7 June 1972–; such as his album: The Idiots Are Winning, circa 2006, 43 minutes. 10.10 - The music from the Berlin setting of the first film: Suspiria, 1 February 1977, premiere at Italy, 99 minutes, directed by Dario Argento that includes the "Kosmische Musik" / cosmic music acts: 10.11 - 'Faust', Germany, circa 1971 – circa 1975—distinguished by dissonance, improvisation and experimental electronic approaches, which later influenced ambient and industrial music, such as: Faust, circa 1971, 34:07 minutes, Polydor Records. 10.12 - 'Can', circa 1968 – circa 1991, known for flare in psychedelic rock / funk, with the album: Tago Mago, circa 1971, 73:27 minutes, United Artists10.13 - Further, Thom Yorke has integrated sounds of Ennio Morricone, 10 November 1928 – 6 July 2020, the composer of the sound-track for the first film: Suspiria, 1 February 1977, premiere at Italy, 99 minutes, directed by Dario Argento, and its pop music genre style of structure to the tracks. 10.14 - The sound-track's theatrical dance-piece: Völk, 6:24 minutes, for the dance scene towards the end of the film, is an example of mise-en-abîme, a structural trope of which seemingly authenticates the illusory, filmic system in which it is represented, that is, it reinforces the audience's perception that the witches' magic is plausible. 10.15 - The specific track: Völk, 6:24 minutes is reminiscent of the sound-tracks to late-1970s giallo, for example: Oedipus Orca, 4 April 1977, 100 minutes, directed by Eriprando Visconti, in the use of slow-creeping, droning Moog-tube and key-board sounds contrasted to high-pitched, unsettling "industrial noise", all of which unite in momentum as a cacophony off-set by low-toned, muffled, repeated acoustics that fall off to silence—is there a sense of the unified mission and longing for its fulfilment representative of the troupe / troop? 10.16 - When such musical interpretation is considered with the semantics of the main track title: Völk, 6:24 minutes, the music evokes the mission of the "hoi polloi" / Ancient Greek: οἱ πολλοί: the people, troops, witches, legion—and inasmuch is further suggestive of the Red Army, viz. the Chinese Communist Party, that is otherwise invisible in the film. 10.17 - The sound-track follows post-modernistic immersion in to the tectonic with shifting acoustics and a resistance to melodic sentimentality: rather it is full of anxiety, apprehension and terrible awe, as the dancers come under greater degrees of control through the witches' indoctrination, terror and omnipotent-type surveillance. 10.18 - It could all be "movie magic" for what a show—or as the angel said: “Why are you so amazed?”... “I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and ten horns"—from: The Book Of Revelation 17:7, English Standard Version
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Tuesday, 30 July 2024

PART III. FURTHER STILL ON DARIO ARGENTO'S THE THREE MOTHERS' TRILOGY—THE FILM: 'MOTHER OF TEARS: THE THIRD MOTHER, 6 SEPTEMBER 2007, 141:38 MINUTES', DIRECTED BY DARIO ARGENTO; A BLOG, 30 JULY 2024, BY CRAIG STEVEN JOSEPH LACEY.

§1.0 - Points 1.0–1.13: THIS BLOG'S CONTENTS:
1.1 - THIS BLOG'S TITLE:
1.2 - PART III. FURTHER STILL ON DARIO ARGENTO'S THE THREE MOTHERS' TRILOGY—THE FILM: 'MOTHER OF TEARS: THE THIRD MOTHER, 6 SEPTEMBER 2007, 141:38 MINUTES', DIRECTED BY DARIO ARGENTO; A BLOG, 30 JULY 2024, BY CRAIG STEVEN JOSEPH LACEY.
1.3 - THIS BLOG'S LISTED SECTIONS AND NUMBERED POINTS:
1.4 - §2.0: Points 2.0–2.10: THE DISCLAIMER /
1.5 - §3.0: Points 3.0–3.3: THE DATES OF RESEARCH, WRITING AND ON-LINE PUBLICATION /
1.6 - §4.0: Points 4.0–4.15: A GIALLO FILM STRETCHED IN TO THE HORROR AND APOCALYPTIC SUB-GENRES /
1.7 - §5.0: Points 5.0–5.19: THE FILM'S GIALLO OBSESSIONS WITH FEMININE SEXUALITY AND THE TYRANNY OF NO PRIVACY / 
1.8 - §6.0: Points 6.0–6.19: CROSSING-OVER GENRES AND DIMENSIONS OF SPIRITUAL REALITY /
1.9 - §7.0: Points 7.0–7.14: COMMENTS ON THE ÆSTHETICS OF DARIO ARGENTO'S THREE MOTHERS TRILOGY /
1.10 - §8.0: Points 8.0–8.13: MATER LACHRYMARUM AND HER SON THE ANTI-CHRIST /
1.11 - §9.0: Points 9.0–9.17: A CHILDLESS MATER LACHRYMARUM /
1.12 - §10.0: Points 10.0–10.26: REGARDING MATER LACHRYMARUM'S RED TUNIC AND THE FILMS: 'PROFONDO ROSSO, 7 MARCH 1975, 126 MINUTES', 'IN FABRIC, 18 SEPTEMBER 2018, 118 MINUTES', 'CRUELLA, 18 MAY 2021, 134 MINUTES' AND 'MADAME WEB, 12 FEBRUARY 2024, 116 MINUTES' /
1.13 - §11.0: Points 11.0–11.7: AN AFTERWORD //
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§2.0 - THE DISCLAIMER—Refer to the Points 2.0–2.10 /
2.1 - All rights reserved © Craig Steven Joseph Lacey, 4 December 1976–, Australia. 2.2 - Changing the content or re-publishing this blog is strictly prohibited. 2.3 - This blog is protected by the: 2.4 -Privacy Act 1988 of Australia, against unauthorized access to Craig Steven Joseph Lacey's Samsung Galaxy A05s, and Google account; 2.5 - Cybercrime Act 2001 of Australia, against computer fraud or internet fraud; 2.6 - Copyright Act 1968 of Australia, against intellectual property theft; 2.7 - Universal Copyright Convention, circa 1952; 2.8 - Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, 9 September 1886. 2.9 - Fines and/or prosecution will apply according to Australian and International law in reference to unauthorised access and use of this blog published through the Blogger app of Google.com and the author's storage device(s) with the data. 2.10 - There are five composite images in total, including thirteen film stills in-set from: Mother Of Tears: The Third Mother / Mater Lachrymarum: La Terza Madre, 6 September 2007, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, 141:38 minutes, directed by Dario Argento—acknowledge that the film stills are provided as two images in a composite, vertical format, except for one composite that incorporates three film stills.
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§3.0 - THE DATES OF RESEARCH, WRITING AND ON-LINE PUBLICATION—Refer to the Points 3.0–3.5 /
3.1 - This blog was started 30.07.2024 and completed 30.07.2024. 3.2 - Researched and composed, 24.07.2024 to 30.07.2024, by Craig Steven Joseph Lacey at Brisbane City, Queensland, Australia, 4000. 3.3 - Word count: 6,530 and characters count: 39,555. 3.4 - Last up-dated: 05:05, 18.08.2024, Australian Eastern Standard Time.
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§4.0 - A GIALLO FILM STRETCHED IN TO THE HORROR / APOCALYPTIC SUB-GENRES—Refer to the Points 4.0–4.15, listed directly beneath.
4.1 - The "giallo" film: Mother Of Tears: The Third Mother / Mater Lachrymarum: La Terza Madre, 6 September 2007, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, 141:38 minutes, directed by Dario Argento, is based on a script by Dario Argento and the contemporary, American film-makers of the horror genre: Jace Anderson and Adam Gierasch. 4.2 - Jace Anderson's and Adam Gierasch's influence on this film of Dario Argento's is palpable, as the last of the Three Mothers Trilogy film stretches the giallo genre towards horror, specifically the sub-genre of the apocalypse, the most horrific yet profound of subjects. 4.3 - To briefly mention an example of the Jace Anderson's and Adam Gierasch's suburban horror / slasher sub-genre script for: 4.4 - Toolbox Murders, 19 March 2004, premiere at Hamburg Nacht der 1000 Schreie, Germany, 95 minutes, directed by Willard Tobe Hooper, that is a re-make of: 4.5The Toolbox Murders, 17 February 1978, El Paso, Texas, 93 minutes, directed by Dennis Donnelly. 4.6 - The two films mentioned above at point 4.4, are reminiscent of the film made at a similar time as Dennis Donnelly's film of 1978, viz.: 4.7 - A Day of Judgment, circa 1981, 92 minutes, directed by Charles Reynolds, in which one man visits a town to unleash "end time", such as the figure of the grim reaper as the agent of The Last Judgment, though "in reality" is a serial killer representative of the slasher sub-genre. 4.8 - There is the American horror film of the 1970s, such as: 4.9 - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 11 October 1974, the United States of America, 123 minutes, also directed by Willard Tobe Hooper, which celebrates a type of de-symbolized apocalyptical event rendered in every-day terms; it is the apocalyptic sub-genre rendered in ætheistically minimalised terms: on the door-step of the neighbourhood—at which point the difference emerges to this more recent film: Mater Lachrymarum: The Third Mother, 6 September 2007, with neo-pagan / Satanic symbolism retained. 4.10 - Dario Argento's film of 2007 partially draws upon Judeo-Christian eschatology, possibly most derivative of: The Book Of Daniel of the Christian Old Testament with allusions to "the abomination" as "the desolator", and: The Book Of Jeremiah 20:10: 'For I hear many whispering. Terror is on every side'—in which a bleak vision of terror permits that no hope may be entertained. 4.11 - Further, the Mayan cultural forms of savage violence and barbarism and the celebration of "the end of the world", arguably finds representation in such films as: 4.12 - Apocalypse Now, 19 May 1979, premiere at Cannes, 147 minutes, 70 millimeters, directed by Francis Coppola, or; 4.13 - Apocalypto, 8 December 2006, 138 minutes, directed by Mel Gibson. 4.14 - The narration of: Apocalypse Now, 19 May 1979, 147 minutes, of on-going battle, of war itself, as a type of secular or power-focused 'armageddon'—refer to: 'And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon, Revelation 16:16'—that is, historically defined rather than supernaturally, viz. the Vietnam War, 1 November 1955 until the fall of Saigon, 30 April 1975, nonetheless involved something of a modern confrontation of Western World Christianity to Eastern World sun-worship religions and cosmologies. 4.15 - Yet the savagery and horror of the human heart seems to have the greatest correlation to the Mayan jungles of not only Cambodia / Vietnam but Guatamala and generally South America, in which dwell the very symbols of the bestial and wild, such as: the ape, leopard, snake, crocodile, etc., beneath a sky with a moon, stars and sun, as portrayed by: Apocalypto, 8 December 2006, 138 minutes, and further with an archaeologically / anthropologically informed narrative, the gore of Dario Argento's stylistic and imaginary films seem less shocking.
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§5.0 - THE FILM'S GIALLO OBSESSIONS WITH FEMININE SEXUALITY AND THE TYRANNY OF NO PRIVACY—Refer to the Points 5.0–5.19, listed directly beneath.
5.0 - There are moments of the first two giallo films' psychologically claustrophobic atmosphere in this film that is evocative of female sexuality, particularly regarding the anxiety of rape, such as when Sarah Mandy, acted by Asia Argento, becomes invisible at a train station's book-shop, only to be almost pinned-in to a corner of a set of library shelves by the detective, Enzo Marki, acted by Cristian Solimeno. 5.1 - Refer to the two film stills from Mother Of Tears: The Third Mother, 6 September 2007, 141:38 minutes, which involve Sarah Mandy being incidentally pinned in to the corner of book shelves to evoke giallo's claustrophobia.
5.2 - Juxtaposed to the witch, Mater Lachrymarum's often naked and licentious coven, giallo's standard fragility of female sexuality is lost—and the later lesbian sex scene involving the white witch, acted by Marta Colossi, and, Elga, acted by Silvia Rubino, concur something of the expression of female sexuality, rather than repression, though it is symbolically punished. 5.3 - Nonetheless, this film arguably retains Dario Argento's "giallo frisson": primarily through Sarah Mandy's characterisation of naïveté and Catholic puritanism or frigidity as resistant to a type of sexual defilement, viz. the spoiling (not deflowering) of the stereo-typical Christian / virgin, a central complex of Catholicism. 5.4 - The often unsettling content of giallo films are predicated on the attack of the Satanic blasphemers upon Christianity: the virtuous life of the Christian, such as symbolised by the virgin maiden, and the Madonna proper, are shown in states of moral compromise that involve survival situations in which moral debasement is almost impossible to deny. 5.5 - Yet adult sexuality is in expressiveness not necessarily immoral: the main text of the bible, the New Testament, writes of no judgment upon sexual expression—though the inference through Jesus Christ is, it ideally be a matter of love rather than lust and sado-masochism: because love is the central tenet of Jesus Christ's doctrines. 5.6 - On which point, the witches of Lachrymarum's catacomb appear to prolapse from the giallo script, engaged in bizarre sexual acts as rituals imitative of physical sensuality, because they are amongst other things, junkies, whose pleasure is foremost provided through a syringe. 5.7 - Refer to two film stills beneath of Mater Lachrymarum's catacomb, where Sarah Mandy stumbles upon a scene of an opposite sex, sibling couple, tied, naked together, covered in lacerations, and a female couple in which one partner appears to suck through a tube fæces from the other partner's anus.
5.8 - There is then the observation to make, there are matters obvious in the film that require no explanation, that is, to those of the cult of the Anti-Christ who could count as among the majority of the film's audience. 5.9 - A Christian has become something of a spy it would seem—I am classed as something of an outsider who "peers in", after all "peering in" is the great offering of film per se, from voyeurism through to probative insight, though eavesdropping has something further to do with it too. 5.10 - On which point, the subject of the first two films: of a private interiority of space set against a further secret interiority of space is only slightly represented in this final film—there is a brief moment shown in which: 5.11 - A dæmon appears in a camera's lens as photographs are taken for the Catholic church regarding the excavation of the coffins; 5.12 - One of the golems spy through a hole at Giselle Mares, acted by Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni, at the Museo di Roma as she opens the coffins; 5.13 - Mater Lachrymarum's secret catacomb, beneath the desecrated Roman mansion, entered through a stone door with glyphic buttons to press and automate access. 5.14 - Refer to three non-contiguous film stills vertically placed directly beneath that show a dæmon in the camera lens at the excavation site, a dæmon at Museo di Roma's spy hole and Sarah Mandy's hand pressing the stone button marked with a swirling swastika to open the secret passage.
§6.0 - CROSSING-OVER GENRES AND DIMENSIONS OF SPIRITUAL REALITY—Refer to the Points 6.0–6.14, listed directly beneath.
6.1 - During the scenes in which Sarah Mandy's love interest, Michael Pierce, acted by Adam James, pursues her, since he has become the undead, is intercepted by Sarah's deceased mother, Eliza, from the spiritual plane, who wrestles with Michael Pierce, who is aflame, and takes him in to a type of inter-dimensional worm-hole, that could be an allusion to his passing to Heaven, such that it is inferred, a good person made undead retains the acceptance by Heaven. 6.2 - Refer to two film stills directly beneath in which Sarah Mandy witnesses the spirit of Elisa pull the flaming Michael Pierce in to an inter-dimensional hole.
6.3 - The scene is reminiscent of the action of "supernatural crossing-over" in to the real world as portrayed by the earlier film: 6.4 - Constantine, 7 February 2005, premiere at Paris, France, 121 minutes, directed by Francis Lawrence. 6.5 - The character and plight of 'Constantine', acted by Keneau Reeves, are quite separate from biblical accounts—there is an historical association by reference to the name of Emperor Constantine who is claimed to have Christianised the Empire of Rome, and further characterisations of the Devil / Lucifer, the archangel Gabriel, the dæmons: Mammon and Balthazar, and the symbolism of the spear of destiny, but there exists folk-lore realms of hidden, magical dimensions amid the urban-scape, where figures of Haitian voodoo, viz. Baron Samedi as Papa Midnight, manage a bar where can be found dæmons, vampires, witches, etc.—and refer to: "Fairy Tale Sources And Rural Settings In Dario Argento’s Supernatural Horror" by Peter Vorissis in: Literature Volume 3.4, 2023, pages 457–472, for further consideration of folk-lore symbolism in giallo filmic contexts—that is, there is no orthodox expression of the Second Coming in such cultural texts. 6.6 - If it was not for the depth of Christian biblical cultural and historical context from which this film of 2007 draws its narrative, it would be of that B-grade category, that is, the biblical apocalyptic sub-genre's symbolism is profound and aptly suited for sublimity and glorification, such as found in the earlier films: 6.7 - The Seventh Sign, 1 April 1988, 97 minutes, directed by Carl Schultz, or; 6.8 - End Of Days, 24 November 1999, 122 minutes, directed by Peter Hyams. 6.9 - The Book Of Revelation, 7 September 2006, 119 minutes, directed by Ana Kokkinos. 6.10 - The three films mentioned at points 6.7–6.8 pursue a more orthodox line of Christian representation of the apocalypse, specifically relating to Jesus Christ's Second Coming, whereas Dario Argento's films are unorthodox, possibly perverse, particularly in a representation of the Satanic, though ultimately, Mater Lachrymarum and her coven are destroyed within the narrative of the film. 6.11 - The Australian film: The Book Of Revelation, 7 September 2006, 119 minutes, arguably is Satanic: with allusions to the three witches of this Three Mothers Trilogy involved in hexing Daniel to thereafter curse his life. 6.12 - A better representation of a properly Christian interpretation of the Second Coming is evident in the film: 6.13 - Left Behind, 31 October 2000, direct-to-D.V.D. premiere, and 2 February 2001, theatrical release, United States of America, 100 minutes, directed by Vic Sarin; 6.14 - Based on: Left Behind: A Novel Of The Earth's Last Days, circa 1995, by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, 28 April 2011, Re-print, Tyndale House Publishers, 496 pages, ISBN: 9781414334905.
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§7.0 - COMMENTS ON THE ÆSTHETICS OF DARIO ARGENTO'S THREE MOTHERS TRILOGY—Refer to the Points 7.0–7.14, listed directly beneath.
7.1 - Arguably, there is an effect of æsthetics to cause for a Baroque style to emerge, viz. a "giallo Baroque" in the grand-scales of the apocalyptic mixed with giallo. 7.2 - I have argued in my previous blog that the apocalyptic revelation is resisted under the "auspices" of: Mater Tenebrarum of: Inferno, 7 February 1980, 107 minutes—the earlier two films of the Three Mothers Trilogy are distinctly confined within domestic and/or school or prisons institutional settings in which anxiety and sexual ambiguities are pervasive. 7.3 - Mater Lachrymarum's inconsolable grief and angst, her beckoning of war and genocide, causes for the apocalypse as a convulsion comparable to: The Book Of Revelation of the Christian New Testament—as something that cannot be known until the Second Coming of Jesus Christ makes all known. 7.4 - The end of everything is not exactly what Mater Lachrymarum, acted by Moran Atias, desires; she seeks for the return of the Age of Magic and in its sacrilegious turning away from the gospel, a decadence or opulence of effect is caused, if not a monstrance. 7.5 - The scenes involving Sarah Mandy's stay with Marta Colussi, the lesbian, white witch, depicts a sex scene between Marta and Elga, of which Sarah Mandy is not part, supposedly leads to Mater Lachrymarum's familiar, the golem as a man, who is partially shown to climb down a rope that is, as in the magic trick, hung in the air, to cross-over the apocalyptical genre as from a magical fantasy genre, to then establish a further cross-over of the giallo-horror genre—that is, by shoving a spear up Marta's vagina and out her mouth—an horrific killing if ever there was one. 7.6 - More to the point, the naturalism of representation of the scenes of magical / supernatural characters walking in on scenes beyond reasonable explanation: for example, Mater Tenebrarum later walks in to Marta's house after she is murdered, is contrasted to the standard conventions of magical fantasy, such as the possibly ironic reference to the magic trick of climbing down a rope hung in mid air, then transformed in to horrific fatalism by an almost ritualistic killing of grotesque carnage. 7.7 - Arguably there is an overly ornate admixture of filmic metaphors and conventions: from giallo, the supernatural thriller, apocalyptic and horror genres, that cause for a summative æsthetical effect of the "Baroque": an extravagant style of art and architecture from 17th-century Rome that uses aspects of contrast; movement; exuberant detail; deep colour; grandeur; surprise; to achieve a sense of the sublime from the banal—a critical observation made by Maitland McDonagh on Dario Argento's films, but mostly in reference to the technical matters of camera angles, transitions, and unusual perspectives: page 3, "Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento" in: Film Quarterly 41.2, 1987. 7.8 - The decadent contrast and pastiche of stylistic metaphors used to possibly over-come the more clichéd, tired aspects of the genres, particularly the film's premise of the "curse of the mummy" in opening a burial site, and the subsequent series of horror-based subjects, viz. the gory spectacles; witches; familiars; the undead; ghosts; magic; the end of the world, etc., with a recurring symbolic use of the colour of deep red, achieve this Baroque effect. 7.9 - There is, however, a campness to Dario Argento's giallo films which renders them being at risk of becoming comical absurdities, such as of the black comedy of "the dark ride", but a type of art-house flare for innovative re-styling has mostly elevated his films out of the category of travesty, viz. "B-grade schlock", such as in the æsthetic correlation of the trilogy as listed directly beneath: 7.10 - Suspiria, 1 February 1977, 99 minutes: Pop æsthetics mixed with the mediæval village and Neo-Classical styles in giallo form  giallo Baroque. 7.11 - Inferno, 7 February 1980: 107 minutes: the Gothic night-mare and the Victorian-styled city / ghetto in giallo form  giallo Baroque; 7.12 - The Mother Of Tears: The Third Mother, 6 September 2007, 1:41:38 minutesthe supernatural thriller and apocalyptically horrific in giallo form  giallo Baroque. 7.13 - Arguably, giallo Baroque is an equivalence to "the monstrance", the tribute to absolute power as a monolith or the carnivalesque conglomeration, often obscence, that is in an inexplicable way, represented by this film in a very briefly cut and edited moving shot within the subsequent scene to the killing of the white witch, where a pillar of the dead is shown, that is, both a monstrance and conglomeration, is tracked for slightly over a second's duration. 7.14 - Here is the film's apocalyptic prolapse that exudes with the feeling of disturbed frenzy, sado-madochism and bleak chaos: it is supposed to herald the end of the white witch's protectorate and all those within her territory at Rome, but they have been desolated and transformed in to the obscene pillar under the orders of Mater Lachrymarum: alluded to by the monstrous statue.
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§8.0 - MATER LACHRYMARUM AND HER SON THE ANTI-CHRIST—Refer to the Points 8.0–8.13, listed directly beneath.
8.1 - Arguably, a matter of censorship has emerged regarding the legend behind the exhumed coffins, which I will briefly discuss here in this blog. 8.2 - During the film's opening sequence, a cardinal is shown to over-see the excavation of a grave that is peculiarly placed outside the cemetery on a hill over-looking the village Andorno Micca of the region of Piedmont of the Biella province, approximately 70 kilometres north-east of Turin, and two caskets are shown, one an infant's size, the other adult size, peculiarly covered in Aramaic or Occultish glyphs and further chained together. 8.3 - Refer to two film stills beneath that show the site of excavation and the two caskets. 8.4 - After the brutal murder of the art restorer Giselle Mares, acted by Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni, and Sarah Mandy's witnessing of the three golem-type monsters with a baboon, one of the curators, Michael Pierce, also Sarah Mandy's love interest, drives to the village, Andorno Micca, and then to a nearby hospital where Monsignor Brusca, acted by Franco Leo, is dying. 8.5 - The monsignor's acquaintance, Father Milesi—acted by Tommaso Banfi—advises Michael Pierce of a legend regarding a similar discovery of a casket and urn, discovered, circa 1814, at nearby Aosta, when the spirit of devastation rose up to take possession of wolves and rats that killed everyone, even the volunteer nobleman, Oscar De le Vallé, who died after carrying "the urn" to Rome—and that urn allegedly was chained to his coffin. 8.6 - Refer to two film stills in: Mother Of Tears: The Third Mother, 6 September 2007, 102 minutes, hand-rendered illustrated panels, tracked by the camera, from 22:50–23:49 minutes, as Father Milesi conveys the legend. 8.7 - It is a legend and not verified history, and the container with the casket is not really an urn, such as an urn typically is considered: a type of ceramic pot, and further, the so-called urn of the excavation is the perfect size for an infant. 8.8 - Yet there is the further point to make, Mater Lachrymarum could be interpreted as a latter day incarnation of the Egyptian goddess, Isis, whose role was funerary in organising the dead, a role found in Mater Lachrymarum who resides in a catacomb and calls out for death, but the similarity ought to extend to Isis's role as the mother of Horus, and she is depicted with her son almost comparable to the Madonna and Infant Jesus Christ. 8.9 - It is therefore plausible that the exhumed coffins are of Mater Lachrymarum and her son, the infant Anti-Christ, whose coming presages the end of the world, viz. the back-ground subject of the film's narrative. 8.10 - While Mater Lachrymarum's cadaver is found in her casket, the infant's casket is emptied of the body and substituted for the three golem-type / dæmonic statues, an ornate dagger and red tunic: artefacts which are inferred to identify with the Anti-Christ, whose appearance is otherwise suppressed in this narrational version. 8.11 - The absence of either Jesus Christ or the Anti-Christ in this otherwise Day of Judgment legend may be attributed to a symbolic, female desire to break free from the chains of mother-hood—the witch is after all, a radical reversal of the Madonna, who is revered as a constant symbol of the bond between mother and child. 8.12 - There are the scenes within the film of 2007 of mothers killing their children, such as at The Ponte Sant Angelo / Bridge of Saint Michael, a young mother throws her healthy infant, suddenly and violently, over the bridge in to the River Tiber, and then is over-come with tears, such as to indicate she has enacted the curse of Mater Lachrymarum, viz. Mother of Tears. 8.13 - A similar inversion of the role of the mother having a caring, strong bond with her infant is portrayed at the Abbey of Sant'Antonio di Ranverso, the film's only other location shot outside Rone—at Buttigliera Alta, the Metropolitan City of Turin—where a mother uses a meat cleaver to cut her toddler's body in to parts, then, on the steps, cut in to the head of Padre Johannes, acted by Udo Kier, after earlier cutting his throat.
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§9.0 - A CHILDLESS MATER LACHRYMARUM—Refer to the Points 9.0–9.17, listed directly beneath.
9.1 - As has been mentioned in my earlier blogs of: <thoughtsdisjectamembra.blogspot.com>, the Italian film director Dario Argento's Three Mothers Trilogy, made over four decades, involve narratives derived from: 9.2 - Thomas De Quincey's "Suspiria De Profundis, circa Spring 1845", in: Blackwood's Magazine, Edinburgh: Blackwood, ISSN 0006-436X; later published: 5 September 2003, Penguin; first edition, English language, paper-back, 352 pages, ISBN-10 0140439013, ISBN-13 9780140439014. 9.3 - Specifically, the poetic prose chapter: 'Levana And Our Ladies Of Sorrow', refers to Mater Lachrymarum / Mother of Tears as the eldest, most powerful of the three sisters—that she is a Madonna: '...let us honour with the title of “Madonna”, [page 157]', an esteemed woman of great resources, yet who is also: '[she] ... that night and day raves and moans, calling for vanished faces, [page 156]'. 9.4 - Mater Lachrymarum is rich and powerful yet still dissatisfied, because it is inferred she is moved by revenge for: "her children"—'[s]he stood in Rama, where a voice was heard of lamentation—Rachel weeping for her children, [page 156]', and refusing to be comforted, is Thomas De Quincey's reference to: The Book Of Jeremiah 31:15: 9.5 - 'Thus says the Lord: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more”'—from: The Book Of Jeremiah 31:15, English Standard Version. 9.6 - The night-time, moon and tears are further associated in: The Book Of Lamentations 1:2, "How Lonely Sits The City", paraphrased beneath, which uses images echoed in Thomas De Quincey's text: 9.7 - 'She weeps aloud in the night, with tears upon her cheeks. Among all her lovers there is no one to comfort her. All her friends have betrayed her; they have become her enemies'—from: The Book Of Lamentations 1:2, English Standard Version9.8 - Yet, while sympathy may be extended to Rachel / Mater Lachrymarum for her loss, there is the point, she will receive no supplication; only revenge may sate her wrath—as Thomas De Quincey writes in reference to Mater Lachrymarum, she inspires in those she hates: '[mourning] forever', and further: '[wakening, particularly in blind people] to a darkness that is now within a second and a deeper darkness, [page 166]'. 9.9 - Lachrymarum is that figure, comparable to Rachel who has lost all her people, but as Lachrymarum is shown the chance to re-start her people by having a child, only to have her hope taken away from her, for the mother and child are indicated as murdered, that is presumably the basis of the unearthed coffins of the first sequences of: Mother Of Tears: The Third Mother, 6 September 2007. 9.10 - Found buried together, their promise to end the Christian Age by Mater Lachrymarum's grief and son the Anti-Christ, to realise her unquenchable dissatisfaction to quell her wrath and seek revenge by genocide, is placed upon whoever breaks the seal of the coffins, that is the apocalyptic curse precipitated by the putative "tomb raider", in a manner reminiscent of the Egyptian pharoah's tombs or the curse of the mummy—an association that further connects her to Isis. 9.11 - The recurring allusion to Isis further exists in reference to the film's presence of an alchemist, Guglielmo De Witt, acted by Philippe Leroy, to whom Sarah Mandy turns for advice and Guglielmo De Witt provides her with a text: the pseudo-biblum discussed in my previous blog: The Three Mothers by E. Valleri. 9.12 - Arguably, the text is an allusion to the Hermetica, viz. a text by Hermes Trismegistus: Prophetess To Her Son Horus, of which fragments only exist, but is referenced by the Greco-Egyptian alchemist Zosimus of Panopolis, flourished 300 A.D, such as: "On The Letter Omega", in: Thrice Greatest Hermes Part 3, 25 July 2002, by G.R.S. Mead of the Theosophical Society, Kessinger Publishing, English Language‎, paper-back‎, 244 pages, ISBN-10‎ 0766126145, ISBN-13‎ 978-0766126145. 9.13 - The aspects of the Anti-Christ are mostly omitted from Dario Argento's film of 2007: the narrational set of the reversed Second Coming of the Anti-Christ has been entertained in various films, such as: 9.14 - Rosemary's Baby, 12 June 1968, 137 minutes, directed by Roman Polanski, or: 9.15 - The Omen, 6 June 6 1976, 111 minutes, Britain, directed by Richard Donald Schwartzberg. 9.16 - Where the yet-born Adrian constructs Rosemary's life for her in: Rosemary's Baby, 12 June 1968, 137 minutes, Mater Lachrymarum has unshackled herself of her son, it would seem, possibly erasing the fact there ever was a chain connecting her to him. 9.17 - Similarly, Damien is something of a changeling being a substitution at birth, and a dream of a standard, healthy family is ruined by a boy who cannot but steal the main focus of attention as everyone around him are subject to his darkness in: The Omen, 6 June 6 1976, 111 minutes
§10.0 - REGARDING MATER LACHRYMARUM'S RED TUNIC: AND THE FILMS 'PROFONDO ROSSO, 7 MARCH 1975, 126 MINUTES', 'IN FABRIC, 18 SEPTEMBER 2018, 118 MINUTES', 'CRUELLA, 18 MAY 2018, 134 MINUTES' AND 'MADAME WEB, 12 FEBRUARY 2024, 116 MINUTES'—Refer to the Points 10.0–10.26, listed directly beneath.
10.1 - Within Mater Lachrymarum's catacomb her red tunic is returned to her from the excavation, further identifying her to the buried figure—it is implied she recurs in cycles of time, similar to a system of reincarnation, yet not reincarnation—and it is the tunic, an under-garment worn by both men and women that appears to reinstate her with her old powers. 10.2 - The red-coloured tunic covers her from the nudity of the de-identified slave—she has been something of a slave to her cause and coven—but the colouring of a distinctive "poppy red" further connects her to sensuality, the blood of violence and war, and a desirousness for and control of opium. 10.3 - The colour of poppy red is reminiscent of Dario Argento's symbolic use of the colour in his earlier film: 10.4 - Profondo Rosso / Profound Red, 7 March 1975, 126 minutes, a film that narrates a legend caused by the perfidious Mater Lachrymarum. 10.5 - One of the distinctive visions of Dario Argento's film of 2007 is the portrayal of Mater Lachrymarum as a vampire—Moran Atias is quite simply "vampy" with her dark hair and eyes and poppy-red lips: there is indicated an Aramaic cultural syncretism of categories of cultural text: biblical / Afro-Asian religions and folk-lore narratives, viz. the witch and vampire, as if to disguise her true affiliation and identity. 10.6 - The aspect of opium use and addiction may be part of the haze through which few may see through; a point of which is typically erased in the films based on the Three Mothers: but to return to Thomas De Quincey's text: Confessions Of An Opium Eater, circa 1824, there exists a lateral connection to opium and the Three Mothers, other than the poppy-red colour coding. 10.7 - Through the mind-altering effects of opium, Mater Lachrymarum presumably is able to cast magic upon her coven, but it remains another aspect to the narratives of the Three Mothers Trilogy, which is censored or submerged in the texts: a similar treatment of the Anti-Christ son regarding the film of 2007. 10.8 - Instead the red colour is registered symbolically as the two faces of lusty seduction and the zeal for victory; something of a marker of the femme fatale as celebrated by film, such as by the American comedy: 10.9 - The Woman In Red, 15 August 1984, 86 minutes, directed by and featuring Gene Wilder, an American romantic comedy film directed by Billy Wilder, that features a billowing red dress and string bikini as points of seduction. 10.10 - On which point compare: The Seven Year Itch 3 June 1955, premiere at New York City, 105 minutes, directed by Billy Wilder, in which Marylin Monroe's white dress exploits the conceit of the virgin / child. 10.11 - The pit-falls of succumbing to seductive beguilement are, in the case of Mater Lachrymarum, avoided when she, as acted by Ania Pieroni, briefly appears at a music lecture and the back of a taxi at Rome, during the film: Inferno, 7 February 1980, 107 minutes, and there she attempts to beguile Mark Elliot, acted by Leigh McCloskey, who leaves for New York, who is able to destroy Mater Tenebrarum. 10.12 - Continuing in the giallo genre's supernatural, film noir treatment of red garments is the quite recent British film: 10.13 - In Fabric, 18 September 2018, premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, 118 minutes, directed by Peter Strickland. 10.14 - Refer to the theatrical release poster in the hyper-link for the film, in which the red dress reveals not only the skin of the wearer, but the ligaments, bone and muscle tissue. 10.15 - The red dress is the centre of murders and fires, yet remains invincible, seemingly invested with talismanic powers, perhaps, as an approach to constructing feminine identity avec the witch, the fabric is fetishised as endowing clothing with the mystery of identity, often elusive to "opium eaters", but really clothing can be deceptive as disguise and perishable when compared to other substances, such as brick, stone or iron? 10.16 - The mobs of witches that scout round Rome, in search of Sarah Mandy, are all fashioned in 1980s New Wave: witch Katerina, of Mongolian ethnicity, acted by Jun Ichikawa, wears Japanese / Korean facial make-up to further the cultural ambit of reference and involvement. 10.17 - The "yoke of the egg" is the core substance of which the three mothers are made and known, a point of which is played upon in the films as a resistance to real, historical personage, as though the three golems are one and the same as the three mothers, formed yet unformed, inhabit worlds of secrecy and strange conspiracy as half-souls, an unborn state that allows them to slip through hidden doors or use skeleton keys. 10.18 - As Thomas De Quincey wrote of Mater Lachrymarum: 10.19 - 'This Sister, the elder, it is that carries keys more than papal at her girdle, which open every cottage and every palace... By the power of the keys it is that Our Lady of Tears glides, a ghostly intruder, into the chambers of sleepless men, sleepless women, sleepless children, from Ganges to the Nile, from Nile to Mississippi, [page 157]'. 10.20 - Mater Suspiriorum is revealed only to disappear as an apparition within Dario Argento's first film of the Trilogy, and Mater Tenebrarum appears only incognito: now Mater Lachrymarum appears as though she has always been somewhere at the periphery of history, as arguably women have always been with the children. 10.21 - Mater Lachrymarum's lair is beneath the surface, a subterranean setting: plausible as an emptied-out, group-sized, cult-based catacomb, where the cult is possibly of Isis, the Ancient Egyptian funerary goddess, who exist in partial life, as the undead, who are supposed to attain life upon Judgement Day; though the film is equivocal in communicating this central notion, as to remain indulgent in the pleasures of gothic vanity; in the excesses of deep red—worn unapologetically. 10.22 - At the risk of ridiculing what is profound in Dario Argento's Three Mothers Trilogy, there is some resemblance to the Disney-produced film: Cruella, 18 May 2021, premiere at El Capitan Theatre, 134 minutes, directed by Craig Gillespie: witch-craft and slavishness to fashion correlate to an unconscious demand for a whole, intact body. 10.23 - To expound on this point further, there is indicated a threat of dismemberment to the bodies of Mater Lachrymarum / Cruella, that clothing, viz. the red tunic, "magically" sates the desire of the restored image of the mutilated body: the torso, trunk or core of the body, that without limbs and head is yet further suggestive of the form of Dagon's torso, the Ark (Judaism), or Kaaba (Islam)—an image of suffering far from the "civility" of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. 10.24 - Dario Argento's film of 2007 that metaphorically tints life in red is, however, not communicated as liberating; quite the contrary: by "painting the town red", that is, partaking in blood-baths, liberation is entertained, but true liberation involves the disciplining of the passions of the instinctual, including the sin of wrath. 10.25 - It is a conclusion with which it is believed Dario Argento himself has concurred, because each of the three Mothers are killed, and the most recent film's theatrical release poster uses a still taken from the film, that conflates the metaphors of Lachrymarum's powers: "cob-webbing": mummifying in cyclic rituals, and "cracking porcelain": scarring her victims' face / body and identity. 10.26 - Further, the more recent, dark fantasy, adventure genre of film: Madame Web, 12 February 2024, premiered at Regency Village Theatre, 116 minutes, directed by S.J. Clarkson, comes to mind, in which parallel or concurrent existences are portrayed in a manner that escapes Dario Argento's exaltation of giallo based conventions: the Marvel Comics' stable of comic-book styled heroes and fiends are flexible in their far-fetched, cartoon-type modality, or such films are cartoons rendered "realistically", and are incomparable to the discourses of profound, eternal religion, even when such discourses are possibly blasphemed.
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11.0 - AN AFTERWORD—Refer to the Points 11.0–11.7, listed directly beneath.
11.1 - There is scarcely any research on Dario Argento's Mater Lachrymarum: The Third Witch, 6 September 2007, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, 141:38 minutes; that is, I have made comments based on my own observations.
11.2 - The absence of film-based criticism regarding Mater Lachrymarum: The Third Witch, 6 September 2007, itself, is peculiar: Dario Argento's films typically draw critical attention. 11.3 - While not especially great films, the Three Mothers' Trilogy of films are culturally significant on an international scale and worth commentary—though, perhaps Mater Lachrymarum does not agree?! 11.4Suspiria, 1 February 1977, Italy, 99 minutes, has garnered the most critical attention and that attention is further reinforced by the re-make: Suspiria, 1 September 2018, Venice, 152 minutes, but it is directed by Luca Guadagnino, not Dario Argento. 11.5 - As previously commented, I was labeled and persecuted as a changeling and that persecution continues here at Brisbane, Queensland, Australia: for I wrote a similar blog on this film approximately five years ago, only to have my phone and data stolen, but I am hoping since that time, with the passing and assent of the Human Rights Act 2019 of Queensland, Australia, I can have my work published on-line without it being unofficially censored. 11.6 - Further, I intend to publish another on-line blog of film and cultural criticism on: Suspiria, 1 September 2018, premiere at Venice, 152 minutes, directed by Luca Guadagnino with a screenplay by David Kajganich. 11.7 - As an ever-compromised Christian, I further comment that my sincerest recommendation is read the Christian bible: <https://www.blueletterbible.org/>.
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