Worthy Films Depicting Maternal Loss

 

Sometimes films encourages mourners to see that the valiant spirit of our mothers (or motherly figures) will always be with us no matter what. 

It has been a year and five months since my mother passed away. 

Every single day after, I have felt the impact of her loss, even in films regarding dying mothers, absent mothers. During my childhood, I always thought it peculiar that Disney animations have the mother figure long expired, leaving female characters with only their fathers for company— Jasmine, Ariel, and Belle for example. While these fairy tale girls grow up lacking maternal guidance, we’re not allowed to see them express loss of the motherhood figure. Perhaps the suggested time has past or their mothers died in childbirth, leaving their memories devoid of real, vital connection. There are no underlying existences for their grief. They just exchange one male presence for another.  

Personally, my grief will never fully heal. It is eternal. Art remains a medicinal beacon for me, especially cinema. When I compiled my list, thinking of works left off from Join Cake regarding this sensitive subject matter, inclusive stories are still a problem to other film writers. Although many of us have yet to see every work ever made, I am performing a service for those who need other recommendations. Some have big names and larger budgets and others do not. 

Here are essential heartbreaker films that deserve notice:

Big Mama prepares holiday feast with her daughters: Teri (Vanessa Williams), Maxine (Vivica A. Fox), and Bird (Nia Long).

George Tillman Jr’s Soul Food (1997) centers on the Joseph family in Chicago: Joe “Big Mama” Hall, a diabetic mother, her three adult daughters: Teri, Maxine, and Bird, and their complex relationships with men and food. Narrated by Maxine’s son Ahmed, the matriarchal structure hangs in the balance as Big Mama’s life falters between life and death. 

Food history plays a distinctive role here. The legacy of labored cooking traditions and cherished recipes are past down from generation to generation. Yes, it can be greasy, cheesy, buttery, salty, and glazed and second and third helping plates may contribute to the generational diseases. That does not change the simple fact that Black food packed in the emotional ingredients of our ancestors far exceeds bland, unseasoned palettes. With the infamous Boys II Men song “Mama,” this messy family dynamic drama somehow makes the heart grow fonder, missing mothers and grandmothers alike. 

Sole (Hope Olaide Wilson) stands up to her maternal grandmother.

In Soul Food’s opposite, Tchaiko Omawale’s experimental film Solace (2018) channels maternal loss as an inherent eating disorder. Although seventeen-year-old Sole’s mother has long since passed away, Sole’s grief is a quietly bottled secret manifesting through the very harmful self-inflicted actions her mother made. Sole misses her father— whom she lost while staying with him in New York City. Yet, when Sole moves into her dead mother’s family house in Los Angeles, California, a dangerous habit threatens to tear this artist’s world asunder. 

Olympia (McKenzie Chinn) relies on her mother Angie (Penelope Wilson) for guidance.

In McKenzie Chinn and Gregory Dix’s Olympia (2018), a struggling Chicago artist named Olympia frequently visits her dying mother Angie at the hospital. It hits home harder than the other films because my mom’s last days were spent at a nursing facility, siting or lying on an assigned bed, always wearing a blue hospital gown despite a closet containing her favorite house dresses. In post-COVID society, we were not granted visitation, not granted a final goodbye. 

Olympia and Angie are two creative souls veering on life’s differing stages; Olympia’s a temporary career setback and Angie’s body ready to make the final bow. Their mother/daughter relationship is beautifully rendered, very caring and heartfelt. Although Olympia is not prepared to lose the strongest figure in her life (none of us are truly), a wise Angie assures Olympia that she has a valid contribution to make in the world. 

Makeup artist Maye (Salli Richardson-Whitfield) values her talented performer aunt Amanda (Beverly Todd) like a devoted daughter.  

Although Ava DuVernay’s poignant debut I Will Follow (2010) focuses on a niece packing up the boxes of her recently deceased aunt’s house, a maternal dignity is richly painted in the close relationship between Maye and Amanda. Abstract and poetic, vividly expressed through Maye’s whimsical memories, the film highlights that incredible notion that our aunts can be our surrogate mothers, our newfound best friends, our significant ties to family tree treasures. Amanda’s love for Maye felt both alike the genuine, sympathetic aunt and the compassionate, generous mother. It was Maye present for Amanda’s final days and Maye reliving those tender moments warmed and bathed in Amanda’s vocalized affection.  

In Seoul, Korea, the mother (Soo-ah Lee) searches for Bin (Song-Lee Kim) and Jin’s (Hee Yeon-kim) estranged father— at the cost of her daughters. They likely will never see her again. 

So Yong Kim’s Treeless Mountain (2008) is a sad story of abandonment— another form of grief entirely as Bin and Jin— two little girls— are left behind without a goodbye from their impoverished mother. This showcases the darker side to single parenting; the depressing desperation that takes place way past the post partum stage (or maybe the mother had never been properly diagnosed). For women without income or a reliable partner— lack of stability for their children begins adding a weight on them, taking a considerable toll on their emotional, physical, and mental well being. In this powerful film, you feel sorry for the suffering mother and also understand her actions to leave Bin and Jin to an undesirable fate. 

Three generations of women celebrate Marion’s birthday— Marion’s mother Nelly (Margot Abascal) and Marion’s future daughter Nelly (Josephine Sanz). Marion (Gabrielle Sanz) blows out her candles.

Céline Sciamma’s Petite Maman (2021) —one of my favorite films of 2022— looks at mourning in a subtle magical innovation. Nelly, a sweet eight-year-old named after her grandmother is transported to playing with her own adolescent mother, Marion— a charming mesh of future and past connecting to the other. While the adult Marion has disappeared to grieve her mother’s death alone from her husband and Nelly, little Marion (who may be the most clever imaginary friend) and Nelly enjoy their precious, limited time together around identical childhood homes.  

I cherish my listed films for showing different types of maternal loss at various ages for the girls and women left behind. I resonate greatly with these grieving characters who must manage to keep their composures together for the sake of those still present on earth— whether for their siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, their own children, or their own individual self. In the real world, we have to adapt without the sentimental foundation our matriarchs have built and nurtured within us. We the broken-hearted population have to find the good part in surviving without our mothers— daughters most especially— and continue living as we did. 

Young Sisters Survive Abandonment in 'Treeless Mountain'

Treeless Mountain film poster.

Jin is the oldest of two sisters and the only one in school. After class ends, Jin plays pogs and she's quite good at earning a considerable stack. Due to having a little fun, Jin is late in picking up her little sister Bin from an upset caretaker. From the scene, it sounds as though the caretaker too has had enough of Jin and Bin's mother and must take frustrations out on the children. Jin and Bin's mother isn't happy either, having enforced Jin to leave the precious parts of childhood behind at way too early an age.

"Why were you late?" The mother asks.
Jin doesn't respond, likely fearing disappointment that she wasted that time playing games. 

This foreshadows the mother's role in the film, in Jin and Bin's lives. The girls did what was expected of them by the mother, but the mother reappears the moment "she's supposed to."

The mother (Soo-ah Lee), Jin (Hee-yeon Kim), and Bin (Song-hee Kim) set out for an uncertain future. 

Later on, the mother has been evicted and goes off with her daughters via bus to stay with her sister-in-law. The next day, however, the mother leaves Jin and Bin a pink plastic piggy bank and promises to return once it is filled. She either knows that they will not make enough change or that she will truly reunite with their absent father. Thus, this reveals that children alone do not make unbelievable notions-- adults living in fanciful worlds can harm the family foundation. After all, the mother has been treating Jin like a babysitter and less like a little girl. It is not that she is shirking motherly duties because she doesn't want them, she can't afford the harsh realities that come with parenting. Financial burden--even with a job--is too heavy a burden and she seems to have no where to turn. She could drop the girls off from place to place, but where can a mother go?

Bin and Jin still watch out for their mother each day and work hard for their drunken aunt-- a woman who scolds and yells. She barely gives them coins for their piggy bank. Suddenly, there are times, Jin is sent to bed without supper or their aunt is passed out drunk, leaving the girls with nothing to eat. They befriend a neighborhood boy and his sweet, affectionate mother (who gladly feeds them). In fact, the mother is like a mother they should have had, a caring, thoughtful, generous woman who always has a plate of cookies to spare. The cookies are comforting to Jin and Bin. Yet they don't want to keep using her. Instead, they find a resourceful way to support their hunger pangs and fill the piggy bank. It is the grasshopper--an ancient symbol of good luck-- that helps them.

Unfortunately, Jin and Bin will realize that sometimes adults say things they are powerless to mean.

Bin (Song-lee Kim) watches her sister, Jin (Hee-yeon Kim) prepare grasshoppers. They sell these for cheap to make money-- more so than their aunt can give. 

Writer/director/producer So Yong Kim (who has directed episodes of Queen Sugar, American Crime, Good Girls, and Divorce) has rendered a narrative rich in beautiful cinematography and laudable characters. The poignant closeups on Jin and Bin's innocent, doe-eyed faces shows that portrayers Hee-yeon Kim and Song-lee Kim expertly express the pains and sorrows of growing up motherless. Their performances are riveting and heartbreaking, great vehicles to drive the film forward as the characters move from the city life to pitiful poverty to the simplistic farm life of their grandparents. Also, the use of food is important-- the characters eating at the table, picky Jin's dislike of her aunt's food, Bin's compulsion to "eat anything," their grandmother making dough from scratch-- it is all relative.

Bin (Song-lee Kim)  and Jin (Hee-yeon Kim).

The brave, candid Treeless Mountain is an exceptional film about two little girls relying on each other for emotional, moral, psychological, and physical support. Whenever nourishment is lacking, Jin will comfort Bin and likewise. In a world that can easily leave girls behind (especially irresponsible adults), Jin and Bin have to toughen up and let their imaginations breeze into the wind. By the end, the resolution is a somber, appropriate tone to all that of which they have carried and learned from the people around them. Patience ultimately becomes their biggest foe and their greatest ally.