Begotten

Rating:
Summary: brutal, honest, nicely done
Review: Begotten deserves more than a mere five stars. This film is not for everyone, yet everyone should see it. It is full of symbolism that can be dismissed as only pagan mythology (which seems to have its definite presence) or a statement about man's primal nature, woman's nurturing nature, man's bond with mother, etc. For that matter, one of the best aspects of this film is that it is so open to interpretation. One can view it several times and walk away each time with a new insight into the grisly scenes therein. The characters represented are not named until the end credits, and as one reviewer said, that is appropriate, since it allows the viewer to arrive at her own personal conclusions about the symbolism as the film progresses. To me, it appears to portray a dying God (Cernunnos?) waking a slumbering Goddess to create life, which is destroyed and reborn in a hostile world. I loved the film immensly and didn't require any chemical aids to achieve this. Speaking as a comic book fan, if you like Neil Gaiman's Sandman or Joseph Michael Linsner's Dawn, this movie should be right up your alley. Elias Merhige is a director to watch. His next project is Shadow of the Vampire, an interpretive look at the making of director Friedrich Murnau's 1922 film Nosferatu.

Rating:
Summary: AN HALLUCINOGENIC INK-BLOT DREAMSCAPE
Review: Certain stories are better conveyed in black and white.

Emotionally and intellectually, we seem to process color differently. Consider the failure of the shot-for-shot color remake of Hitchcock's iconic black and white classic "Psycho." Ironically, films in black and white can seem more real, urgent or even emotional.

"BEGOTTEN," the spectacular black and white first film by E. Elias Mirhage, the director of "Shadow of a Vampire," defies description and must be experienced.

Against black, these lines begin the movie:

Language bearers, Photographers, Diary makers
You with your memories are dead, frozen
Lost in a present that never stops passing
Here lives the incarnation of matter
A language forever.

What follows is about 80 minutes of grainy, high-contrast mostly dark, nightmarish images that shimmer a hallucinatory chiaroscuro sheen as a human creature, perhaps a mother goddess, gives birth to a tremulous offspring and then mother and child are ravished and buried by primitively cloaked figures and the earth is renewed on their corpses.

Creation legends and myths are seemingly combined with Messianic motifs in mysterious and seductive images. The camera is jerky and the film is scratched and dirty. Bereft of dialogue, the soundtrack is alive with a mix of wind chimes, water, faint bird songs, thunder, crickets, heartbeats, and snippets of music -- mostly chants.

When the film was first released in 1990, it garnered extraordinary reviews from heavyweight critics and essayists. Susan Sontag called it "One of the most important films of modern times." Richard Corliss, in Time magazine, wrote: "Nobody will get through 'Begotten' without being marked." This grotesque and unforgettable film shines a light on those dark recesses -- out of time and place -- where we hold our most ancient collective memories, fears and desires. Extras include a fascinating souvenir booklet, the original trailer and an archive of stills.

Not for everyone.

Rating:
Summary: A Must-See for the Adventurous and Open-Minded
Review: Begotten is a major accomplishment along the lines of David Lynch's Eraserhead. In a sense, Eraserhead had to come before Begotten to prepare the way (like the John the Baptist of movies). Eraserhead was a totally unenjoyable film that I saw four times in the theater, the first time watching the movie, the next viewings I also watched to see if anybody left the theater (I never saw anybody do so, and each time the auditorium was quite full - and this is about ten years after its premiere, and in Virginia!).

I attributed the stalwart nature of the audiences to the fact that the combination of such precisely (and beautifully) composed, lit, and shot film images gave the impression that Lynch knew exactly what he was doing and was getting just what he needed to represent his vision. Juxtaposed against the totally repulsive, nightmarish images and storyline that was as bizarre as it was often revolting and/or dull as dirt, the viewer senses a mystery that transcends the picture plane. Instead of just representing a mystery (such as in any run of the mill murder mystery) the celluloid itself and the projected images in effect become artifacts of an actual mystery. Viewers wonder throughout "what kind of a person would want to create a bizarre movie like this?" as obviously Lynch did. Throughout the film, viewers are trying to find the clue in the artifact that will unlock Lynch's motivation to make such a film.

Begotten is similar, if a little bit more representative of a mystery than a mystery in it's own right. Difficult for the uninitiated to interpret, but once given a clue as to the story line fairly easy to keep up with on that level. Merhige does, however, create an excellent simulacrum of the actual subconscious underpinnings of many recognizable myth cycles, as if Merhige was on site to shoot these images where and when they were originally generated in our collective unconscious.

The reason I believe Lynch's Eraserhead had to come first is that the earlier relies on much more traditional narrative forms (probably the first time anybody said that) and because it is now possible to recognize the grainy and much more raw film style of Begotten as a fulfillment of the director's vision, rather than dismissing it as a haphazard, mistake-ridden film. The difficulty interpreting Begotten, when viewed through a lens previously exposed to Eraserhead, is obviously not due to a lack of skill in storytelling on Merhige's part and I never got the sense that Begotten was just meaningless.

The images in Begotten have a wonderful documentary-style organic feel that is reflected in the excellent soundtrack, composed of synthesized sounds mixed with field recordings of thunder, birds, crickets, bells, etc. The synthsizer underlies the natural sounds and as such really complements the visuals.

A word to the wise: discount the liner notes and don't try to interpret it. This is a movie to experience rather than figure out. Just watch, listen and feel this movie. You'll be glad you did. And gather the whole family to watch.

Rating:
Summary: Weird
Review: Weird is definitely a good thing in my book. This fits the bill, however, I found it to be somewhat tiresome after awhile. Yes, it does indeed make "Eraserhead" look like "Ernest Saves Christmas", but the minimal soundtrack and extreme closeups of god-knows-what tend to get annoying after awhile. Some of the scenes seem to go on FOREVER. However, the opening is definitely very stark and provocative, but unfortunately from there, it alternates between interesting and "next!".

Rating:
Summary: An ambitious, yet unfulfilling experiment
Review: I just finished watching BEGOTTEN on DVD. Besides being one of the most experimental films I've ever seen, I was not overly drawn to this as a story or a concept.

The film is visually stunning and highly unusual, to say the least. It was filmed in an elaborate process of black-and-white reversal, negative-film manipulation, single-frame re-photography, and stillshot superposition. (Reportedly, it took four years to make and "over ten hours to re-photograph less than one minute of selected takes".) It's a beautiful exercise in light and exposure. Very few frames have discernable content so each segment is a developing image. What this means for the "story" however is that everything takes a really long time to evolve and transform.

Now for the "story"... Everything in the film *seems to be* symbolic of something. Since there are no names, no dialogue, no clear faces, you must find the symbolism yourself. If you cannot, you can't follow the story. I think that one could find christian, greek, roman, celtic, or any cultural symbolism in this movie. I didn't pick one, so I had to form a story in my head out of the mishmash. If ever a DVD needed director commentary, this would be the winner. Merhige writes a little about the film in the production notes, but it's hard to equate this with what I watched. He talks about "a mother, her son and their odyssey in a brutal land" culled from Greek tragedy. This is a ridiculous statement, except for the brutal land. The credits list the following characters: "God Killing Himself", "Mother Earth", and "Son of Earth -- Flesh on Bone", along with nameless "nomadic tribes". OK, if that's who the characters are, I don't buy it.

Rating:
Summary: Five Stars For the Weirdness of the Whole Thing
Review: Is it compelling? Very. Is it arty? Often. Is it atmospheric? Indubitably. Is it entertaining? Rarely, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. "Begotten," a wildly inventive low budget film imagined and subsequently lensed by E. Elias Merhige will leave a lasting scar on anyone who watches his nightmarish vision. The celluloid equivalent of a bad dream best forgotten, Merhige's pet project continues to mark its viewers; I occasionally hear people discussing this movie even though it came out over ten years ago. No matter what you come away with after watching "Begotten," you will remember it for ages to come. Nothing approaches its visceral power, its unshakable commitment to weirdness, and its disgustingly haunting imagery. Yes, "Begotten" is all of these things to some and much less to many. I have seen it and still cannot define exactly what I saw or successfully integrate the various scenes into a coherent whole. Perhaps subsequent viewings will uncover a few more details, but I somehow rather doubt that it will. I hope it will be enough to cryptically smile and nod sagely in lieu of explaining the plot the next time someone I know mentions this film. If I ever have to explicate on Merhige's monster to save my life, I could be in a heap of trouble.

What is "Begotten"? It is roughly eighty minutes of a black and white movie showing scenes of mutilation, madness, and murder. The whole thing deals with a sort of primordial or futuristic creation/death ritual carried out between the gods and mankind, or at least I think it does from the few articles I have read about the movie. Probably the easiest scenes to discern are the opening ones, where the camera reveals a twitching creature with a substance disturbingly comparable to blood pouring out of its mouth. With some sort of razor, the being cuts open its own abdomen (in chunky detail) in order to give birth to a new life form. This new goddess and a weird creation coughing up what looks like a piece of meat go forth to encounter shambling primitives who eventually beat these creatures to death. The whole film moves at a snail's pace, with many of the later scenes nearly impenetrable to the eye even on a DVD transfer.

Far from being filmed in glaring color reminiscent of an episode of the Brady Bunch, "Begotten" uses a complicated technique to create a type of black and white picture rarely if ever seen by this viewer. The film employs deliberate scratches on the negative and some sort of treatment that makes the unearthly images contained within glow with a sickly light. There isn't a whit of discernable dialogue in the whole movie, with the only sounds being a discordant drone punctuated by occasional rattles, labored breathing, chimes, and the sounds of water. The sun rises and sets with alarming regularity, but this hint at the passage of time provides no respite for the viewer as the nightmare unfolds onscreen. I could so easily dismiss "Begotten" as utter garbage except for one niggling concern: I could rarely take my eyes off the television screen. What IS going on here? Who knows, but it carries an appeal similar to a car accident on the freeway.

Merhige should receive a compliment for at least trying to accomplish something different with this movie. I'm not surprised in the least to learn that Marilyn Manson retained his services to direct one of his music videos, either. In short, if "Begotten" isn't the strangest, eeriest thing you will ever watch, you have explored bleaker vistas than I. I should conclude with an apology for speaking about this film by using so many superlatives, but watch it and see why I did so.

Rating:
Summary: mis-begotten
Review: loved the trailer.
film was dispointing though. with the time and energy taken to create this surreal nightmare the director could have at least utilized his obvious artistic skills to make the violence more realistic and less hokey. a superior camp film that would have been much more compelling and important if misdirection had been applied and some of the more beautiful shots (the seeming waves behind a lense deformed creature's lurching for instance) were held onto as lovingly as the (intended) disturbing images. a real let down for the price and hype.

Rating:
Summary: Hit-and-Miss-Begotten
Review: It's unique, yes, and sometimes (esp. during the first half hour and the final few minutes) stunning, really hitting the viewer (this viewer, anyway) on some primitive gut level. I'm glad it was made, and I'm glad I saw it. Even the director's cryptic opening message, while a bit pretentious, carries a nightmarish weight. HOWEVER...I wouldn't call it a masterpiece, or even a near-masterpiece; it's got problems, and they're serious. The whole presentation of Mother Earth -- pacing slowly, head up, silly mask, sometimes holding her breasts -- evokes all the worst cliches about "performance art" and feels jarringly out of step with what's come before it. And much of the business with the ragged creatures dragging Mother and Son around seems tedious to no particular end, to the extent that the film's amazing non-narrative elements (that final shot of the trees makes me feel chilly all over, for reasons I can't explain) are sabotaged by the dragginess of its narrative. The whole thing needed to be either more concise or more abstract. Or both. As a student film, it's probably one of the best ever made. As a film, period, it's a masterpiece only sporadically.

Rating:
Summary: Possibly the most disturbing movie ever made
Review: Its impact has made me speechless. It's so surreal, grotesque, horrifying, frightening, obscure, and brilliant. This is THE ONLY MOVIE THAT HAS DISTURBED ME (and I'm an avid horror fan, and have seen some very bizarre stuff). Before I had seen Begotten, the most disturbing movie I had seen was Eraserhead. Don't get me wrong, Lynch's classic is a cinematic breakthrough, but Begotten has taken things to a higher level. Definately not for the weak stomached. If you can stomach it, watch this masterpiece.

Rating:
Summary: A Rorschach test, indeed.
Review: In the end, though you may see images, a Rorschach test consists solely of meaningless inkblots.

This movie is meaningless. There! I said it. What makes a masked man - sitting on a chair in a seemingly-abandoned house and cutting out his internal organs - Godlike? NOTHING. What makes a spastic mud-covered naked man "Messiah-like"? NOTHING. All this talk of the movie's being a "modern myth" or the like is pure claptrap put forth by the big reviewers who didn't want to admit that they didn't "get" the movie. THERE'S NOTHING TO GET!

Seriously. This movie is EVERY BIT as good when watched in fast-forward. No, make that BETTER. After all, the VAST majority of the film is just grainy footage of some robed people dragging around a convulsing, naked man. Oh, and some of the robed people are carrying light fixtures. That gets old, and gets old QUICKLY.

Don't get me wrong: I'm am a great fan of... weird... movies. The problem is, this movie is far more pretentious than weird, and smacks of "trying too hard." I'm imagining the director secretly laughs when he reads a glowing review of this film. Especially a review replete with "interpretation."

And did anybody else get the feeling that some of the big reviewers (quoted on the DVD case) hadn't even SEEN the movie? One reviewer talks about how "a godlike thing dies giving birth to a messiah-like thing." Psst... Even if you fall for the God/Messiah mumbo-jumbo, that's not what happens in the film...

Oh, well. I guess that's all to be expected.