BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Birth

  
 
haus of fraser
09:15 / 04.11.04
The new Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast, Radiohead 'Street spirit' & 'Karma Police' Unkle 'rabbit in the headlights' and Guinness surfer ad director) has a new movie out- its called Birth and it opens in the uk on November 5th-
The plot is based around a woman (Nicole Kidman) who becomes convinced that a ten year old boy is the reincarnation of her dead husband.

Here is a link for the Trailer

The subject matter had critics booing and waking out of the movie at Venice film festival. Other reviews say its marvelous- I personally think that Glazers a bloody great director and i'm looking forward to it. If anything the knee jerk Daily Mail reaction makes me look forward to it even more- however it'll be interesting to see whether it gets a full nationwide release or an 'arthouse' release after the 'Nicole the nonce' stir at Venice...

Anybody seen a preview, any thoughts, anticipation?
 
 
Warewullf
22:06 / 06.11.04
Just been to see it. It was...different.

It felt a bit like an arthouse movie. There were long periods with little to no dialogue, and what dialogue there was felt stilted and unnatural (but that may have been the intention). It's a very careful and measured film. (Calling it slow would be a disservice).
It's also very creepy and unsettling in places. Not in a horror movie way, in a what-is-she-going-to-do-with-that-young-boy way. If the genders had been reversed, this would have been pretty horrible to sit through. (The bath scene in particular springs to mind.)

Oh yeah, I'm not normally someone who feels this way, but that sex-scene at the start was, in fairness, completely gratuitous. (You get to see her fiancé's arse and her left tit, nudity fans!)


*********SPOILERS*********











All in all, I liked the movie and you are left wondering whether he is actually the reincarnation of Sean or not. One question was raised on another board:

If he wasn't really Sean, how did he know Sean was dead?

Also:
If he wasn't really Sean, how did he know where Sean died?

If he wasn't really Sean, how did he know that woman was the one who told Anna there was no Santa? Lucky guess?
(And er, was she Lauren Bacall's lover?)

How did he recognise Clifford? (I'd put that down to a lucky guess. He's a smart kid.)

If he was Sean, then the whole thing with the letters is a bit pointless, aside from establishing the affair later on.

"Don't tell Anna." Don't tell her what? He doesn't remember having the affair. Don't tell her about the letters he found? If Anna knew he had found the letters, she would have guessed he was faking. At that stage he didn't know about the affair so he couldn't have been saying "Don't tell Anna about the affair".

With the lack of a definitive answer and resolution, you are left to fill in a lot of the blanks but this, sadly, borders on fan-fic since I don't feel we're really given enough information. One answer is that he has a part of Sean within him. That's too easy, though, and not really supported by the information in the film. We're not given this as an option, if you follow me. He's either the reincarnation of Sean or he isn't. No middle-ground.
Hmm, although, the deja-vu and the "I'll know them when I see them" could fit this theory. Also, maybe he didn't remember the affair because it wasn't as passionate as she thought it was?

Ah, I dunno. What did you think?
 
 
Warewullf
22:29 / 06.11.04
*****SPOILERS******










From a poster at IMDB:

I also believe that little Sean is actually big Sean. I think that in the end of the movie, when he went to climb the tree that he sat long and hard analyzing himself that he convinced himself that he was not really Sean.

He did this because after he found out that Sean cheated on Anna with Clara, he couldn't possibly believe that he could have done that in his simplistic child's view.

He was reincarnated as Sean, but I think he had a lot of repressed memories, mainly, about Clara, becuase the love he felt for Anna was so pure and strong. He was still in the end a 10 year old child. The film shows him eating ice cream, cake, kicking the fiance's chair, and playing on the jungle gyms. If he was 100% all there and remembered every single thing, then he would have been a child genius and acting like a hotshot and continuing his former job as big Sean did before he died.

He was essentially a child with a body, mannerisms, and ideals of a 10 year old yet he had the most vivid memories of the people he loved intact. For example, when he sees Clifford, that is the first time we see him run up to someone with such glee and emotion. I don't know if that was his brother or best friend, but if he was a faker, then he would have been one good 10 year old con artist just in that scene alone.

So I think that when he found out that Sean had cheated on Anna, in his child's mind he didn't remeber this Clara and couldn't possibly imagine himself cheating on Anna, so he reconciled that he couldn't be the real Sean, even though he actually was. He was essentially thinking like a simple 10 year old that he was a good and pure soul and that he would never do something as evil as cheat on his true love, therefore he could not be Anna's Sean.
 
 
Mystery Gypt
02:44 / 08.11.04
spoilers

i think the concept here is that he believes he is sean, even though he isn't. he wants to experience that love, he wants to be a part of that sophisticated family, and something deep and unconscious snaps inside him when he first reads the letters and imagines they are to him. one of the many things i took away from the film was that it looked at ideas of how we make ourselves believe things and become passionate about them. kidman's character truly believed that she and her husband had a perfect, beautiful love together. but this is clearly not the case. digging deaper into all the unspoken class arrangements in the story, i get the idea that the husband married her for the money, while he was truly in love with anne heche. all of their lives were an emotional one way communication, a fabrication upon which they built a sense of passion.

this is why it takes a completely innocent 10 year old boy, and a totally shattered widow to believe in this relationship. at the very end, when she is in her wedding dress, she is realizing how her emotions are so easily manipulated by what she takes to be facts. she is trapped in the family, and trapped inside an entirely false emotional existence.
 
 
Triplets
10:33 / 08.11.04
I saw this at the tail end of bonfire night. It's the worst fucking film I've ever seen in my life. So boring, so shittily plotted, complete lack of drama or emotional investment.

And two thirds of the film is a close-up of Nicole Kidman's stupid $50,000 face. Four fifty and two hours of my life I am never getting back.

Spoilers: The plot goes like this, 'I'm your dead husband' 'No, you're not' 'Yes, I am, see how boring and detached I am' 'OK, I believe you' 'Actually, I'm not your husband at all' 'Fuck'.

So much hate.
 
 
Keith, like a scientist
18:23 / 14.11.04
saw this last night.

I didn't love it, but I thought it was really good. Reminded me of those quiet, atmospheric French New Wave movies I used to watch in college all the time.

oh, and I loved the music score...brilliant.

anyway, the girl I was with hated it, thought it was completely disgusting (especially the bathtub scene).

spoilers:










Thinking about this the next day, I tend to lean to he was actually Sean. But, I really don't have much evidence for that. Some of the questions raised here make sense to me, but mostly, it's just that I feel that that was the point of the movie, the hook. Taking into account the "Birth" title, the early juxtaposition of Sean dying, and baby Sean being born...I think the whole "wait, I'm not really sean" is a farce brought on by his 10 year old reasoning...

question: why did he follow Clara in the first place?
question: is it realistic to assume someone would read a bunch of letters that share his name, and decided in an hour that he wrote them.
question: did he sound like a 10 year old boy? "anna, you're being silly about this. meet me in the park. you know where."

those are some of the things that are running through my head, that make me think he was actually Sean. That and the Birth title.

Or maybe there was something in his final letter that set Anna off?
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
10:28 / 15.11.04
SPOILERS

Saw an early cut ages ago and liked it; haven't yet stirred myself to see the final version. Yes, it's measured. Yes, the bathtub scene is disturbing - which it's supposed to be, because it presents very graphically the reality of the situation. Saying it's "disgusting" is missing the point; assume for a moment that little Sean is her husband - is it disgusting then? Or is it heartbreaking?

Whatever it is, this movie is worth a look.
 
 
pomegranate
18:34 / 15.11.04
i strongly disliked this movie. which was disappointing, cos i quite liked the premise. but it was just so poorly done. it was really slow-paced, which can be okay in a movie if it's engaging/compelling, but this movie wasn't. what it was, was melodramatic. quite.
 
 
Triplets
21:18 / 15.11.04
Yes!
 
 
D Terminator XXXIII
09:21 / 18.04.05
No!

Ms Triplets: [It's the worst fucking film I've ever seen in my life. So boring, so shittily plotted, complete lack of drama or emotional investment.]

I think a correction is due this statement. It accounts more for your personal taste than it fairly describes the movie because I didn't find it boring, shittily plotted, lacking in drama or emotional investment. And the two teenagers, aged 14 and 16, who saw it with us didn't find it boring either.

It is a subdued and a sublime experience. It lives and breathes with the confounded and conflicting emotions can be made out in the faces, posture and behavioural changes of the characters. It may challenge how one expects a story to flow, but how anyone could expect anything less, with Sexy Beast in mind, tells more of how the movie has been sold.
 
  
Add Your Reply