Mothership Goes to Brazil

The characters in Josefin Arnell’s videos are generally of an unrestrained nature: three young women linked together by a chain through their labia, communicating with an iceberg; a dancer encased in a hazmat suit trying to become one with a group of deer; someone with a serious pony fetish. Seen in this context, an animated Moby Dick wearing headphones on his skull seems pretty normal, and a middle-aged Swedish blond smoking, cursing and coughing positively ordinary. Except that the woman in question is Arnell’s mother, and she is struggling with alcoholism and a serious illness. The filmmaker persuades her to travel to Brazil to seek salvation from the famous alternative healer John of God. But when they arrive, it turns out the miracle worker has been hospitalized. Instead of pain relief, the mother and daughter get a chance to become closer to one another.