Underplayed Gems

Muttertag (1993)

Muttertag poster
Directed by
Harald Sicheritz
Genre
satire, black comedy, comedy film
Country
Austria
Runtime
1h 39m
Rated
12
Rating
7.2 of 10 from 36 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
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How it feels

A family in a Vienna housing estate spends two days before Mother's Day dealing with affairs, theft, and murder plots. Their peaceful weekend turns into a series of ugly fights and grudges.

darkly comicsatiricalabsurdchaotictensebitinggrotesqueunsettling

What happens

Mother's Day (German: Muttertag, also released as Muttertag – Die härtere Komödie) is a 1993 Austrian black comedy film directed by Harald Sicheritz in his feature film debut. Written by Sicheritz with Peter Berecz, Alfred Dorfer and Roland Düringer, it is based on the cabaret piece of the same name by the Austrian comedy group Schlabarett. The film follows 48 hours in the life of the Neugebauer family in a Viennese municipal housing estate in the days immediately before Mother's Day. A seemingly peaceful family weekend descends into grotesque conflict as infidelity, petty theft, attempted murder, family resentment and the threat of institutionalising the grandfather come to the surface. Although it received mixed and sometimes negative reviews on release, Mother's Day later became regarded as a cult film in Austrian cinema. The Austrian Film Institute lists 89,051 theatrical admissions for the film in Austria. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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