Binding Sentiments

A recently widowed woman embarks on a battle of wills with her son and his girlfriend in Mészáros’s icy portrait of the maternal ties that turn to chains. The wealthy, newly widowed Edit attempts to refuse her husband’s life insurance settlement, which isn’t the news that her son wants to hear; chalking it up to “hysteria,” he promptly abducts her and plops her into the family’s countryside villa under the watchful eye of his girlfriend (Kati Kovács, The Girl). A Bergman-esque confrontation between the two women follows, but—as in many Mészáros films—it’s not the female gaze that the protagonist must escape, but the male.