Appalled fascination

Nicolas Pesce’s macabre feature debut, “The Eyes of My Mother,” surprises as one of the best films of 2016

This review contains plot spoilers.

Sometimes you see a film that you love from a filmmaker you know nothing about. This week, it happened to me with writer/director Nicolas Pesce’s feature debut, “The Eyes of My Mother.”

He must have been an assistant director or a cinematographer or writer—some job that translates well to one’s first successful time in the director’s chair. Right? Nope. Aside from a listing as “miscellaneous crew” on the 2005 remake of “The Producers” (as a teenager!), the 26-year old has, thus far, lived completely off the film grid.

That should rightfully change now. Pesce’s sublime inauguration exhibits a grasp of filmmaking, storytelling, and atmosphere that is outside the reach of many directors twice his age and experience. It’s the best first feature from a horror director since Jennifer Kent’s “The Babadook.”

We meet Francisca as a child (Olivia Bond), living on a secluded farm with her weirdly older parents. Mother (Diana Agostini), a former surgeon from Portugal, teaches her the ways of vivisection, practicing on their cattle. Pulling the cornea from a cow’s eyeball, Mother explains to Francisca that human and cow eyes are nearly identical.

Father (Paul Nazak), a stoic figure, seems to never say a word. While he’s away from the farm one afternoon, Mother and Francisca are visited by a salesman who asks to use the toilet. Turns out he’s a wandering psychopath named Charlie (Will Brill) who bludgeons Mother to death in the tub before Father returns to find them.

Instead of calling the cops, though, they bury Mother in the yard and chain Charlie up in barn, where Father removes his eyes and vocal cords—but keeps him alive.

Years later, Father dies. Francisca (portrayed as an adult by Kika Magalhaes) is distraught; she’s now an orphan sundered from her loving family. All she has now in the way of human interaction is her prisoner, Charlie. Afraid of being alone, she begins looking for new friends who—perhaps inadvertently, at first—invariably become her victims.

Shot in black and white, Pesce’s film is something of an homage to the Gothic horror features of the 50s, pioneered by the likes of Val Lewton, William Castle, and Hitchcock. Strikingly lit and framed, the cinematography of Zack Kuperstein (also making his debut in this capacity) contributes to the film’s quiet, atmospheric tension.

As a deconstruction of a serial killer’s origins, Pesce imbues a sense of sadness in Francisca. This isn’t a procedural and, even better, it’s not a hyper-stylized shockfest like Rob Zombie’s remake of “Halloween.” This is a deep dive into the motivations of a killer who is almost as much a victim as her prey. Horrific and sympathetic at once, while Pesce might have had films like “Psycho” and “Bedlam” in mind visually, tonally it reminded me of the queasy emotional state one achieves spending time with Monica, the necrophiliac in Jörg Buttgereit’s 1987 death orgy, “Necromantik,” sans the exploitive sleaze factor.

Kika Magalhaes’s unnerving, dark, and enigmatic performance recalls the sexy malevolence of Scarlett Johansson’s predatory seductress in 2013’s “Under the Skin,” but with her own ethereal and twisted pathology. When Francisca eventually dispatches Charlie, the camera lingers close on their embrace as she casually stabs him below frame, gently kissing his neck as she whispers a mournful goodbye. Deadly, yet vulnerable, she’s alone again. We feel a sense of appalled fascination.

For me, Magalhaes is an instant icon in the genre, as precise a performance as one could ask for, given even more depth by Pesce’s artful execution, both narrative and cinematic.

“The Eyes of My Mother” transcends its genre influences to become something more. It’s not just a great horror flick in a year fairly rich with them. It’s one of the best films of 2016.

For more from Joe, read his review of Denis Villeneuve’s haunting sci-fi movie “Arrival.”