MovieMartyr.com - Begotten

Begotten, the warmly received experimental first film from director E. Elias Merhige, is a passion play that wavers between amateur-hour incompetence and an undeniable directorial vision. It presents an unrelentingly bleak vision of the universe, to be sure, but it’s also one that’s been tempered with some unfortunately shoddy production values and some narrative uncertainty that leaves the viewer confused as often as mystified (a second viewing answers many questions but also reveals flaws that you suspected, but couldn’t confirm the first time through). Some of the movie’s power relies on this bewilderment, and the movie offers so many layers of abstraction (the black and white film, the graininess of the rephotographed film stock, the inverse negative, the bizarrely natural soundtrack, etc…) that what we see becomes almost subconscious. Images dart past us, and we’re not sure if what we think we’ve seen is what we actually we saw, and oftentimes we’re hoping what we thought we saw isn’t what was actually shown, because of its graphic nature. In its best moments, the movie takes on the hyper-real sensations of a fever dream in which everything we perceive is amplified, distorted, and unbearable. It’s unfortunate then, that much of the film consists of plodding dead space that connects these moments of epiphany, despite its relatively short running time.

What little plot there is in the film seems to tell a primal and forgotten creation myth (the first character we see is later named “God Killing Himself” in the end credits), and much of the movie’s power comes from the primordial groove that the series of violent births, deaths, and rapes that the movie sets up. Though the movie might have a simple narrative, it is ambitious in its attempts to work through powerful iconography, and as much as it’s a film of ideas, it’s a film of visceral gut reactions, and that’s something of a rarity in movies. It’s definitely not for the squeamish or unadventurous, and there are too few works that truly warrant that sort of warning, but it’s also not for those who place high value on having easily classifiable experiences (and even less so for those looking to be entertained). Begotten’s biggest problems lie in Merhige’s inability to sustain the illusion that the spasmodic figures that dot its desolate landscapes are as archetypical as the movie would needs us to believe. Whenever that singular illusion lapses, and we manage to get our bearings, the movie crumbles apart into a pretentious and murky muddle. It’s tough to guess to what any given person might get out of Begotten, since it’s such a highly subjective experience. Although I personally didn’t relish my experience with the film, I wouldn’t think anything less of a person who had.

* * 1/2

06-10-02

Jeremy Heilman