Across both literature and cinema, several common themes and motifs emerge in the representation of the mother-son relationship, including:
A different register. The aging widow Emmi marries a much younger Moroccan immigrant, Ali. Her adult son visits, sees the husband, and vomits. He cannot accept his mother’s sexuality, her autonomy, her happiness outside of motherhood. Fassbinder exposes the son’s hypocrisy: he demands his mother be pure, self-sacrificing, and asexual—a saint. When she asserts her own desire, he experiences it as a violation of him . The son’s “love” is revealed as a cage. mom son father pdf malayalam kambi kathakal