For the modern Sri Lankan man, watching these films with his mother is not a movie night. It is a therapy session. It reminds us that in our pursuit of Westernized independence (the "hard candy" of freedom), we must not forget the Amma who built the house we are so eager to burn down.

In Mother! , the protagonist (Mother) is a woman trying to build a perfect home. Her husband (Him), a poet, invites strangers into their paradise. The film descends into chaos when their guests’ son arrives, having murdered his own brother (the Cain and Abel story).

Here, the is inverted. The "son" figure (Cain) destroys the mother’s home, kills her actual newborn child, and the crowd proceeds to cannibalize the infant. For the Sri Lankan viewer—who reveres children as "the apple of the mother’s eye" —this is sacrilege.