Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: MOTHER OF FLIES [Fantastic Fest 2025 - Austin, Texas]

The context of a witching story comes down to its basis but also the inference one places on the character it is focusing on. With "Mother Of Flies", the Adams Family (made up of John Adams, Toby Poser and Zelda Adams) make an interesting moral play on trauma with a sophisticated natural context and a bit of supernatural texture. The revelation of the film is Poser (who also co-directs) as Solveig, a medicine woman who might be more than she seems. The pretense of the film is based on a young woman (Zelda Adams) who has tried different ways to beat cancer as a tumor festers in her gut. She is helped along by her dad but we don't get a perception of what happened to the mom (though Poser --- who plays Solveig --- is Zelda's actual mom in real life). There is a context of mysticism but also darkness wrapped in mythology. Asking Poser during the Q&A about inhabiting the woman she said it reflected in natural forces but also in her own battle with cancer. The imagery becomes in a way more medieval as the film moves along, especially involving a snake which of course in an interesting play on the Garden. The film picks up into gear with one shot where the perception of the character is one thing and then something else flitters into the background and it changes the background of what you're seeing. Granted the exposition starts to play into it much more after this moment.

But in many ways, the film is about faith and letting go without resisting of what can't be controlled. The backstory of Solveig does makes sense but it does talk to themes about those aspects of nature one cannot fathom. Zelda's young woman is so trusting even as Solveig says any recovery will be painful. The transmutation that happens at the end is a little more emblematic than it really needs to be but it is also about being metaphorical in a way and not necessarily literal. But that doesn't take away the power of some of this imagery. The Adams Family is game for a a lot of macabre imagery here. The one that starts off the film is quite striking, similar but very different than "Antichrist" which oddly enough is the film that comes to mind. The shot is a visual representation of a theme but it is about the audience member drawing what they think the imagery means to them. The movie also wrestles with the idea of perspective and perception which keys into the final idea of why Solveig is regarded and remembered in the way she is, both through her own actions as well as no fault of her own. The fact that the Adams shot the whole film (like most of their productions) on their own property is a credit to seeing ideas from different angles. The production doll it their actual house to look like something like a run down Hansel & Gretel abode covered with weeds and greenery as if it was part of the land. This works quite well. There is also a shot looking across a river (which is also on the Adams' land in the Catskills) that perfectly frames, literally and metaphorically, the action that is happening both internal of the character and external. "Mother Of Flies" is an ode to those decisions we can't control and yet the ones we live with. B

By Tim Wassberg