Review of The Babadook (2014) by Isundukova — 04 Dec 2014

I think, Babadok is a new wave of New Brave World philosophical cinema where characters materialize their fears, hate, and inner evils into popular folk villains. Bottom line, woman who is so fed up with her autistic child’s behavior, diverges her hatred toward him (her child) and ex-husband (also genetically accountable for a child being physically unbearable).

She expressing her contradictory feelings toward boy who drives her crazy in form of folkloric hallucinations which are at the same time support her madness, propelling the plot forward. In reality, Babadook is an identity of her madness which many mothers with many autistic children would go through.

The director’s vision defined this feeling and mapped it with strong intense diabolic association. The importance of this movie is conserved between lines of its symbolism, showing a real feelings of rage that overpowers autistic mother in distress and agony.

At the end, she comes in terms with her hate which is real and it is normal. Sometimes, we have to come in terms with ugly side of our psychos. Remarkable that movie will have hard time among all that sugar-coated political correctness where mothers are supposed to be religiously programmed for good only zombies who never feel anything diabolic at all.

So, the symbolism might skip many closed minds and remain in the pool of B- horror flicks from Aussie weird artsy mind.