Why is that society holds motherhood to such a strict moral standard unlike fatherhood? The Director, Maria Speth, raises this question to the society that demands mothers to be the Madonna, while separating the image of women with the Madonna-whore variation. Many of today’s mothers cannot possibly live up to this demand, and the gap between the ideal image of a mother expected by society and reality only serve to torment the mothers. Rita is one of these mothers. She has given birth to six children by five fathers, but she turns them over to her mother Isabella when she cannot manage to raise them all. Rita blames her states on her mother, by claiming that ‘She was never a mother to me’, and takes revenge by living a life similar to her mother. Even so, the mothers stay and take care of their children in whatever way they can, although the fathers leave them. The director stresses that there are various kinds of mothers, just as the title of the film is plural Madonnas, and that daughters can also become mothers. Rita’s oldest daughter Fanny, who must take care of her younger siblings instead of Rita, will someday ask Rita that ‘why she was never a mother to me’. The breathtaking tension between Rita and Fanny that takes place over the crisp sandy imagery is indeed the reality facing Madonnas. (CHO Hye-young)