"Then how come the spirit comes up on top?"
As, I said, Mama is god. Literally, Mama is an "evil" spirit; but allegorically, she is the Great Mother.
"Both end up in death."
We all die, my friend. But Lilly doesn't die. Lilly longs for union with god. In the cocoon she is reunited with Mama/god: and she is re-born. (Note the light and "X" in the cocoon -- doesn't it look as though Lilly is in the womb?) That's why Victoria recognizes the blue butterfly as Lilly, and calls it by name. The butterfly is Lilly's soul.
A caterpillar/larva doesn't die when it enters a cocoon or chrysalis. Look at the scene where the girls are drawing on the wall, doesn't Lilly with the blanket over her head look like a caterpillar?
As I said in another post, all horror fans should know LeFanu's "Carmilla." In it he says, "Girls are caterpillars while they live in the world, to be finally butterflies when the summer comes."
"Maybe it's another dimension. Or, you know, just really deep." --Needy
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vortexrider
10 years ago
No, that suggested meaning of the movie and what this "mama" is supposedly a metaphor for simply doesn't work.
To suggest that in the context of the film she is somehow is not evil, or that she is "good" somehow is absurd. This would only work if everyone in the film subscribed to the philosophy that there is no such thing as "good" or "bad" and all were relative. This would include killing innocents as somehow "not bad". This is clearly not the case here because this ghost does kill the aunt, the nun, and who knows who else, pushes a man down the stairs. He only miraculously survives.
This suggested explanation would also make the kids dad neither evil nor god I and his intent to kill his kids and supposedly that he killed someone. It would also make neither the people who took her original kid not those men who chased her bad in any way. Besides I doubt any of them meant any evil in the first place, but ok, we don't know that.
It was clearly shown the ghost coerced the girls when they were already in the house and getting used to life there and began liking their foster mom. It was shown in the end that the musician mother really did care and love the new kids particularly because she figured out what caused their strange behavior. She tried to grab and cling both of the kids when this demonic ghost slammed her to the ground. Throughout the movie it was even shown that this "mama" either possessed or hypnotized the younger girl.
So none of these "she is a metaphor" explanations work because otherwise the director would have shown it through the scenes.
What user al mentions about this ghost being basically invincible and all powerful is another stupid nonsense that pretty much violates any rules of ghosts or any existing beliefs. I mean that's the point of having the distinction between the world of the living and the presumed after world or the ghost world. One has life and the options only living have and the other sometimes has either the power to influence others, or to hurt them if some sort of evil power is given them or if they steal the power of the living. Third option is when a greater power such as God allows some ghosts to punish evil people. Everything more or less falls into those categories.
There is! really no discernable metaphor or absolution for the ghost of the mother no matter what perspective you choose to use. So the ending really is nihilistic and a downer.
I agree with user OP al. Such disappointing endings do make watching such films pointless. And in this film the plot is just stupid and doesn't make sense even if the viewer liked such crap endings.
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