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mother mary

i think mary is a bad therapist 😱😱😱 im sorry but i think perhaps her previous childhood experiences with her mother’s mental illness could be affecting how she views her own clients, I think perhaps she may have some deep subconscious resentment towards people who seek help from her, and I’ll tell you why I think that. From the beginning we see her take a bit of a simplistic look towards mental illnesses like depression, “if you just opened the window you could pass through it, its not locked, the latch isn’t broken, just open it.” However repeatedly during the movie we see characters encounter windows that they can not pass through or even see, one of the very last shots of the movie is Phil looking at an extremely tinted window, people on the other side are watching him to see what he does and what Mary does but its not like he can see them, and its definitely not a window that can just be opened. Clark depicts himself(?) falling from a window into the hands of a horrible version of himself, perhaps he sees Mary’s main philosophy as more of a trap than freedom, just the fact that Mary is so obsessed with windows is proof that she’s not over her own childhood trauma and is not seeking help for it (therapists can see therapists its true.) Then we have the scene where she breaks from the therapist role and is her most authentic self and it shows she kind of hates Clark because he blames everyone but himself for his problems (which isn’t necessarily untrue) but then she says the line, “you are your fucking brain,” which is the problem with her as a therapist. I don’t know if you know this, but therapists aren’t supposed to fucking say that, mostly because of people who struggle with intrusive thoughts and anxiety and shit like that, because if someone with issues like this were to believe that, they may kill themselves! Which, interestingly, by some interpretations, is exactly what happens right after Mary tells Clark this.

The scene where Clark (most likely) dies is very interesting to me. Because, as I’ve already said, it could be a metaphor for suicide, Capt. Clark kills Clark, he kills himself in a way. It could also be a metaphor for if you give in to your mental illness, if you let it rule your life then you will be eaten alive by it, which is a very literal interpretation but whatevah. Or that if you giving up on changing for the better all that will be left, or all people will remember you as, is a half-baked caricature of what you truly are, I don’t know.

Clark is intriguing as a character because it’s unclear what he wants from therapy, he misses his wife but still has this distain for her trying to become a lawyer stemming from his own failures to succeed as an architect; he doesn’t seem to want to learn to cope with his failures though. Therapy has done nothing to stop or slow his drinking, perhaps he just needs someone to talk to, someone who will take his side or listen to him when he has no one in his life who he would call a friend. In the scene where he’s having “dinner” with Mary he asks her how to stop, how to stop messing up his own life, and Mary says, “I have no fucking idea,” so another win for team ‘Bad Therapist Mary’ haha just kidding but it seems he wants his life to be better. He wants to be happier he wants to stop doing bad things, that’s probably what he wants from therapy, but there is not cure-all answer there, while Mary says, “that’s just how you’re wired,” I do think that could be partially true but that’s an overly simplistic and not a very therapist way of thinking. I believe positive change is always possible, while your wiring may be done kind of poorly and you have three switches on your breaker box unconnected to the others, if the circumstances allow for it, you can improve, that’s what I think. Clark mentions his childhood in a way that sounds like it was very difficult for him, but Mary never talks about it, it’s unclear if she even knows what it was like. Clark also keeps bringing up money when talking about troubles with his wife, if law school didn’t cost so much, if the home he bought for them didn’t cost so much, perhaps he wouldn’t feel so trapped in his own life if everything didn’t cost so fucking much. But, it’s also possible I’m projecting my gripes with money onto da movie. But, that interpretation is very true to life, it’s not uncommon for people’s circumstances to lead to problems with mental health that feel inescapable. its like that post i cant remember where it came from that says “money cant buy happiness but its more comfortable to cry in a lamborghini than on a bicycle” or smthn, AND THEYRE RIGHT. THEYRE RIGHT! shit sucks if ur poor and everyday is the same if ur poor so no wonder its so difficult to get out of a loop when the bills just keep fucking adding up. I think the backrooms are a metaphor for mental illness and i’d bet my bottom dollar u agree. I like it a lot as a depiction of that, because Clark is “normal,” and Mary is “normal,” but they still struggle through incomplete memories and looping through the same nightmares over and over in a place nobody can see. It’s not the popular depiction of struggles within your own mind, it’s not under-researched view of PTSD and/or hallucinations it’s a person who is outwardly “normal” who is troubled immensely in a place that hardly anyone can see and seems inescapable. Even if they DO see it, ppl might just observe you and LEAVE YOU THERE??? (Rest in Peace Clark and fuck those MIR machines) Which is cool to me forgive me I think its cool, that’s a lot like how it is irl. The more common depictions have their place, but mental illness rarely looks the same, even if tv shows and movies would lead you to believe otherwise. The way the movie constantly depicts Mary in a windowless room even after Mary has destroyed the concrete from her home which was demolished shows it truly is nearly impossible to escape The Backrooms even if you do, there’s still a version of yourself half-remembered there, which makes me think that the movie has a better understanding of how tough your own mind can be to overcome than Mary does. (sorry if it seems like I hate her, i dont, but i do think she shouldnt be a therapist lowkey)

The way she ended up in an asylum, eyes empty, like her mom?

camera angles!!!

when we’re with clark as he travels through the backrooms, the camera angles feel claustrophobic. there are a lot of tight shots of his face, and POV shots than any other character.

when we’re travelling with mary, the shots are agoraphobic. she’s out of her depth, and it gives you such a wide pan of the backrooms that you instinctively search every corner of the camera for Something.

clark feels trapped in his life. he works a dead end job, he’s been kicked out of his house, and overall feels very defeated. the camera angles reflect that, clark is afraid of being trapped.

mary, on the other hand, is still struggling with her mother’s agoraphobia. while she doesn’t have any massive indicators that she too has it, as the movie progresses and she starts dwelling on the trauma of her mother’s abuse more and more, she almost uses her mother’s fear as a way to cope with the backrooms.

i think this may also be connected to that first therapy scene we see, where we’re immediately introduced to the theme of the movie; in order to change your life, you need to change. if you don’t change your own behavior, you’ll be stuck in the cycle forever. we’re also shown two contrasting shots of mary and clark; mary with her back to a closed window, and clark with his back to an open one. this reflects their claustrophobic and agoraphobic parallels, but it also parallels the final shot of the movie, where mary is the one with her back to an open window. before each character gets sucked into the backrooms, they turn their back on the window. they turn their back on any hope of changing, and instead decide to stay stagnant. they can question people (phil or mary), they can complain, they can mourn, but if they refuse to exit the window, they will be trapped in the loop forever.

we're looking to create an AI policy, and when we were talking about this, my boss (older millennial) was genuinely shocked to hear that younger people do not (seem) to view AI positively (a la the recent commencement speakers being booed)

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ENHANCE

Clark has got to be one of the best-written horror antagonists in recent memory, and the thing I love most about his character is how the film makes you understand his hardships, while at the same time not using them to justify, excuse, or downplay his actions.

You really get a clear idea of how his own hardships inspire the bad decisions he makes. And at the same time, it doesn't pull any punches in showing you the consequences of those decisions, which ultimately resulted in the creation of the Captain Clark entity.

Yes, I don't doubt that he was going through a very difficult time in his life, but it goes without saying that it doesn't give him the right to lash out at everyone and make their lives difficult. And it sure as hell didn't give him the right to take out his frustrations on his spouse or Mary!!!

That's why I love (to hate) him so much! He's not some run-of-the-mill mustache-twirling villain. He's understandable, relatable, and even sympathetic! And at the same time, the film is smart enough to not use those things that make him understandable, relatable, and sympathetic to excuse the harm and hurt he chose to inflict.