Begotten

Rating:
Summary: lake of fire material
Review: utter non-sense

Rating:
Summary: Easily The Worst...
Review: No other film even comes close. When my friends and I want to hurt each other we rent this movie. This movie really deserves less than one star. It must be The Only Perfect Gift for masochists and sadists alike. Noone could watch this whole film without whiskey. I almost gave up black and white movies forever after viewing this film.

Rating:
Summary: Bunuel did it better...
Review: Visually engaging, this initial impression fades quickly as you watch a martyr slowly chop out his liver with a straight razor. This first scene contains so many visual references to Bunuel & Dali's Un Chien Andalou (sp) - (straight razors, shots of the full moon, close ups on eyeballs - all shot in grainy high-contrast black & white that makes it look like a vintage film), one cannot help but draw comparisons. This disembowelment goes on much, MUCH longer than it needs to (as do most of the scenes throughout - repetition is a major theme here - so much so, that it bores you).

We are supposed to believe, that out of the entrails of the dead martyr - a new goddess is born. This goddess then takes the dead god's seed and impregnates herself - later giving birth to a convulsive, crippled being who appears to spit up livers for 20 minutes or so while being dragged through the wilderness by a group of nomads clad in swaddling rags. These nomads by the way use two ropes (Bunuel again) to drag our quivering friend through the dirt for what seems to be half the film.

After the nomads tire of this liver regurgitation, they smash our friend's head on a rock, and macerate his still-quivering body into the ground for ten minutes. Then they go over to his mother and rub her vagina (for good luck?) for about 15 minutes and kill her in the same fashion.

This is when the fast-forward button was employed. What remained of the bodies is buried in some overtly ceremonial way by a different group of nomads. Then there is a great rebirth and flowers spring up and it's over and you feel like you just watched a very self indulgent student film for the last hour and fifteen minutes. If this is what you're looking for, see Chien Andalou or L'Age D'or as well, and see what i'm talking about.

Rating:
Summary: You MUST watch it TWICE to full understand or appreciate...
Review: ...or else it's going to completely go over your head. Any written description of the plot WILL NOT prepare you for watching this film. Provided you're not completely disgusted after the first five to ten minutes, you find yourself completely absorbed for the rest of this quivering, shadow-filled story. I wouldn't romanticize it by focusing on it's religious imagery alone, ie. the Creation, the immaculate conception, Christ's crucifixion, Goddess-worship, etc., simply because this is a stark and brutal interpretation of those themes. I can't say that I loved it either, (ie. it gave me a warm-fuzzy feeling, and so on) because it is difficult to watch, but it's one of the most unforgettable viewing experiences of my life. Its comparisons to Lynch's "Eraserhead" are justified, except that "Begotten" is not half as surrealistic. And watch it alone--it's dark, morbid tone will make your company leave the room, trust me! END

Rating:
Summary: Well.... okay....
Review: It's good. It is. It really really is. In a sick sort of way.

Let's start with a plot summary. In the beginning, we have a god, who lives all alone. He cuts himself open and a new god emerges from his entrails. Now, this god gives birth to another god, and the two go frolic around or somesuch. They come upon a band of druid-esque Nature Worshipper sort of cult. They're revered and worshipped, and then they decide to leave. So the druids beat them to death. When they're buried, flowers mysteriously spring up over the grave. The end. No explanation, nothing. And here's the kick-- there's not a scrap of dialogue in it. There is a soundtrack of sorts, but not one word, not one thing to evince any modicum of communication.

So, that's it, and it's all black and white, and the scenes are one act of revolt after another. Nothing is known of anything in this movie-- upon viewing it, you feel violently empty, as if you were raped or something.

But don't get me wrong. It is quality, not in the immediate, while-y END

Rating:
Summary: Tiresome
Review: I remember watching this in college. I like finding movies off the beaten path, but don't believe this is so far off the beaten path, please....really it tries too hard to offend and mystify, succeeding in neither. It is a laughable movie....a pseudo-intellectual, pseudo-controversial, avant-garde parody dragging a body and saying nothing. Such a squalid attempt at shock and revelation made me laugh, and eventually weary. Try 'The Exterminating Angel' or 'Picnic at Hanging Rock', both bizarre and disturbing in much more refreshing ways.

Rating:
Summary: Not worth all the hype, but still definitely worth seeing
Review: So after reading what seemed to be hundreds of reviews praising this movie, calling it things like.. "A beautiful, highly disturbing masterpiece", and "One of the ten most important films of modern times", I finally ordered this movie off the interenet, hoping to see a movie that was simply going to blow me away in every asepect.

I'm a huge fan of scary movies, and while I knew this was going to be anything but your conventional scary movie, I was basically looking for something that was going to give me nightmares for weeks on end. Was I looking in the wrong place? Perhaps. But regardless, my reaction after finally seeing the movie that was hailed "One of the ten best pictures of the year", was simply... "What the..."

Yes, this movie was highly unsettling at times. The first 15 minutes of the movie left me totally speechless. A very creepy looking guy (the guy on the cover) sits in a chair, pulls out his guts, cuts pieces of them off with his razor, and tosses them on the floor. Also, when the "townspeople" (I think that's what they're supposed to be) kill off "mother earth" and "the son of earth", it was also something that was, at the very least, difficult to watch.

However, my biggest complaint is that for seriously half of the movie I was asking myself, "What exactly is going on?" The high-contrast black and white style of the film does add an eerie, original aspect, but a lot of the time it's to the point where you literally cannot distinguish what's happening. And it does get annoying.

Another complaint I have... it seems a little drawn out for the amount of things that happen in this movie. This guy guts himself, craps all over his leg (that was pretty gross), then some girl emerges wearing a mask, impregnates herself by means of which I will not go into detail, gives birth to a naked guy who literally does nothing the entire movie but constantly shake and make strange breathing noises.. then for seriously 30 minutes they are dragged around by guys in cloaks, after which they're brutally killed.. then follows is another 20 minutes of God knows what's happening (looks like the townspeople are ripping them to pieces maybe?.. I honestly couldn't tell at all), then pieces of them are buried in the ground, and you see fast-fowarded images of plants growing.

And that's it. Am I missing the point? Probably. But to the average viewer, while the scene of the guy gutting himself will always stick in my head (this guy seriously looks downright scary... how he resembles a "god-like figure" though is beyond me), it really wasn't exactly what I was looking for. Also... what's with the crickets and birds chirping throughout the ENTIRE MOVIE? If anything, those sounds represent peacefulness, which is all but what's going on in this movie.

So in conclusion I will say, if you can get your hands on it, watch it. It truly was an experience watching something like this... I've never seen anything like it (except maybe Eraserhead... but still by a long shot). Don't pay 25 bucks for the DVD though based on the reviews alone, though (like I almost did). Simply put, this is not the greatest movie ever created. Probably one of the weirdest, though, and just like it says on the movie box, you WILL be marked after watching it.

Rating:
Summary: Everyone's a critic, few are filmmakers
Review: As a diehard Lynch disciple, I can hardly even compare this film to Eraserhead other than to say both it and Begotten are black and white, and seem to convey a sense that the main characters truly do not belong in the worlds they live in.

Begotten is a seemingly savage film documenting the birth of life through violent, Greek-mythology style parameters(full grown children forcing their way out, like Zeus and Athena), and the nature of man to rape and destroy that life which he either envys, or does not understand. The illusion is conveyed by the director, that the film pre-dates any known civilization.

The downsides to Begotten are that some of the pacing is very slow, combined with a soundtrack that is 70 percent nature sounds like crickets, bird-chirps, and wind, the film can easily put some folks into a very sedated state. There is only 68 minutes of live-action footage between the credits, and it feels longer than that without question.

The upsides to Begotten are that it is a very uniqe story, filmed in one of the most non-conventional ways I have ever seen. Merhige obviously spent much time obsessing about the final result of each take, and it shows. The images are disturbing, for at least the reason that in many cases you can't really get a clear view of what you are seeing, however your instinct tells you it involves some type of suffering on the part of the main characters. Mankind's gift for senseless destruction is relayed by both symbolic and realistic means. Life's apathy towards this is also effectively interlaced into this film, leaving a sense of helplessness on the part of the viewer.

A great film that is not for everyone, which chronicles life, sex, and death in a way few have ever seen before.

Rating:
Summary: The ultimate semi-unwatchable student film
Review: Yes, this is a very interesting looking movie. And the soundtrack is great. The sound effects really add a lot to the movie as well; in some scenes (if you choose to call anything in this movie a "scene") it is totally necessary to rely upon these effects if you hope to have any clue whatsoever what is going on.
And yet there is no way I'd watch Begotten again, and it's not because it's a haunting vision that tore into the fabric of my soul or anything. I would never watch this again because it's pretentious and, frankly, rather boring.
It really is a great-looking movie. The opening few minutes with God Killing Himself doing what his name implies, and the subsequent birth and impregnation of Mother Earth, is quite compelling. Then the movie slows...to...a...crawl. This is also around the time Elias Merhige begins to throw in student film conventions like shots of clouds passing and the sun (moon?) setting. And this is also about the time he decides that every scene must last FOREVER. Actions such as stabbings/clubbings go on and on, with nothing to keep up viewers' attention. The editing is absolutely leaden. Any of the infrequent quick cuts provide a brief moment of excitement (so those of you expecting a music video should look elsewhere). There's other problems. While establishing shots of windows may make sense in a more conventional film, they accomplish very little in such an overtly symbolic work. I fail to see what numerous shots of the walls of the house where God Kills Himself have to add to the movie.
In the end, this really comes off as the ultimate student film. Merhige clearly loves German Expressionist cinema (as further evidenced by his recent film Shadow of the Vampire). He copies the chirascuro visual style and the heavy symbolism, but I really don't feel like he had anything to say, other than something totally hackneyed like "man kills himself and his environment." And yet the resurrection ending doesn't correspond with this message, unless Merhige is saying something equally banal like "history repeats itself." Oh well, at least he's trying to say something.
I'd recommend checking out some classics of German Expressionism instead (Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Metropolis, and Nosferatu, for example). You'd have to be very patient or stubborn to enjoy this movie, though I don't doubt there are those who loved this. Try finding one of them that owns this and then convince them to let you watch the first twenty minutes. That's all you need.

Rating:
Summary: Nightmarish, disturbing, difficult to watch, I loved it.
Review: I rented a video of Begotten after finding it in the "Cult Movies" section and reading the description. A nightmarish black and white surreal take on father god/mother earth metaphors from perhaps all human cultures. The God/Mary/Jesus imagery is there in a perverse way. It evokes dreams I have had that seem to touch something inside me that is too painful to confront. The Jungian concept of cultural symbols that show up in the "Collective Subconscious" seems to be expressed here. "Begotten" makes me think of the passages in Jung's "Man And His Symbols" regarding a little girl who had dreams with religious images that were distorted and disturbing, but the child seemed to be fascinated by what she had "learned" and wanted to share it with others through drawings. Passages of James Frazer's "The Golden Bough" and writings of Joseph Campbell also come to mind. Although this is a positive review, I must admit that I fast forwarded parts of it. It's hard for me to believe it was only 78 minutes long, and yet I am glad I had the experience of watching "Begotten." Definitely not for the person who doesn't want to think about the "dark" recesses of his or her psyche.