Cinema of Crushing Motherhood

A New Feminist Cinema

Breaking down recent films about the dark side of motherhood

Twenty-first century contemporary films like Emily Atef’s Das Fremde in mir and Savannah Leaf’s Earth Mama portray motherhood as a source of regret, exhaustion, rage, shame, guilt, and disgust. Olivia Landry analyzes this new feminist cinema and the ways it embraces and explores the crushing burden of mothering children. Landry surveys films released in North America, Europe, and Australia over a period beginning in 2007. As she shows, revelation and the expression of negative feelings upend the traditional image of the perfect, self-sacrificial, and happy mother.

Landry tracks how radical positions like maternal regret and family abolition have replaced age-old tropes while also going beyond portrayals of maternal ambivalence. Her feminist method casts off psychoanalysis and renounces pathological approaches to motherhood to show how a generation of filmmakers have insisted on the subjective position and experience of the mother rather than that of the child. Bold and groundbreaking, Cinema of Crushing Motherhood looks at taboo-breaking films and illuminates the emotions and affects that make them so powerful.

UK Delivery:

• Free delivery on all orders of £10 or more.
• £1.49 delivery fee on orders below £10.
• UK orders are shipped via Royal Mail 2nd Class.

International Delivery:

• Flat rate delivery charges vary by country.

Dispatch and Delivery Times:

• All orders are shipped from our warehouse in Northampton, UK within 48 hours of receipt during working hours.
• UK mainland orders typically arrive within 3-5 working days via Royal Mail 2nd Class.
• International estimated delivery times:
• Europe & Channel Islands: 7 to 10 working days
• USA: 7 to 15 working days
• Rest of the World: 9 to 21 working days

View our full delivery infomation here.