OUR MOTHER'S HOUSE
A film review by Shane R. Burridge
Copyright 1997 Shane R. Burridge
Our Mother's House (1967) 105m.
Not the sentimental family story you might expect - in fact, after viewing this film you might think of the title as spookily possessive. Jack Clayton directs a cast of mostly children in this adaptation of Julian Gloag's novel. Film begins with the death of the children's bedridden mother, an event that upsets them terribly, but unites them in a common purpose: to keep the legacy of their mother's household management alive.
The idea of children fending for themselves in their homes without parental supervision has been done before in everything from comedies to horror movies, and while OUR MOTHER'S HOUSE isn't the last word on the subject, it does have a satisfying wholeness about it. Story recognizes the need for authority in young, impressionable lives - most interestingly, the children allow their dead mother to continue managing their affairs by channeling her spirit through one of the older sisters, effectively placing consequence out of their hands. This transference of authoritative power from the material to the ethereal - between which the children make no distinction - might indicate that the story has something to say about religion, but this idea is put aside once the children's long-lost father (Dirk Bogarde) appears on the scene. If their mother represents (in their eyes) a benign divinity, then their shiftless father becomes the devil incarnate. Only Elsa, the eldest sister, refuses to fall for his charms. Gradually, the discipline of the household begins to crumble. Bogarde introduces `sins' such as alcohol, adultery, gambling, forgery, seduction, and deceit, but significantly it is only when he challenges the children's own faith with doubt(read: heresy)that he finally goes too far.
Clayton handles the story intelligently, although he gets a little melodramatic towards the end. Somber mood of film is probably helped by casting of Bogarde, whose characters always seem to end up dead in most of his work. Georges Delerue wrote the tender score. Worth a look, even if it is regarded as one of Clayton's weaker films.
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