My 2024 Watchlist Obsession!

Ooh….A Tale of Two Sisters is pretty great.

Well, here's a horror movie which is very layered, and about family in a sense - or at least family that no longer functions as what a family is meant to be. It's one of those movies that jumps in with characters obviously in the middle of going through something complex, leaving us to ask, "Okay - why the hatred here? What has happened?" (in medias res is the term I'm searching for.) Young Bae Su-mi (Im Soo-jung) comes home after having been away for some time with sister Bae Su-yeon (Moon Geun-young) - but friction with their step-mother Heo Eun-joo (Yum Jung-ah) is there the moment their icy eyes meet - there's no love lost, and it's obvious there's no immediate hope of reconciliation. The mood in the house is further soured by the fact that the sisters' father, Bae Moo-hyeon (Kim Kap-soo), is no longer sleeping with his wife - he seems distant and lost. Little wonder then that apparitions appear to Su-mi - and it's not only her. Guests also see the ghost of a girl in the house. Tempers flare when Eun-joo's birds are killed - but who killed them? It's a complex web of trauma, betrayal, rage and heartbreak under the most extreme of circumstances.

Once betrayed, you can't just smile, clap your hands and try to make friends with a teenage step-daughter - especially if that betrayal touches on the way that step-daughter's blood relatives have been treated. Some cuts don't heal - but the wounds the characters have in A Tale of Two Sisters are hidden at first. In the meantime, as we try to settle into the old house Su-mi is trying to settle in, the creaky floorboards and ghostly apparitions make that a tough ask. Thankfully this story isn't crammed with jump-scares - but it does have one doozy that completely got me (probably because I was thinking this film was above doing it) and also makes the most of what Asian horror is really good at : creepy damn ghosts. The two elements of family and a haunting don't seem to fit together, and it isn't until you've gone through the whole film and learned the story of this family that it all begins to make perfect sense. Some reveals you might guess - but don't worry - A Tale of Two Sisters has a stacked deck of them.

This is one movie that transcends it's horror roots and becomes something more of a tragedy - a really great drama is at the heart of everything we see that might frighten us, or keep us on edge. Despite being based on the "Janghwa Hongryeon jeon" Korean folktale, it forges it's own path and does a damn good job of giving us viewers a movie that you could watch several times if you like - finding new clues, and new ways to analyse the subconscious meaning of everything ethereal that we see. Once you know what's happened, it opens up to you on that level. At first though, the movie will tantalize you with mystery all the way through - mystery that can't be explained with one revelation, but many over the course of the film's last twenty-or-so minutes. The last scene, and last few shots, are absolutely brilliant - sound, vision and storytelling skill hitting upon something sublimely exact in how it hits your heart and mind. Very haunting, and very sad - tragic in every way, and in a way only filmmakers from this part of the world can summon up. One to think about long after it's ended.

Glad to catch this one - written about in much of my literature : Film Korea by Michael Leader & Jake Cunningham and Asia Shock by Patrick Galloway.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch A Tale of Two Sisters.

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Everything starts so nicely in The Little Foxes, with an extended family of Hubbards and Giddens in the American South sharing delightfully friendly breakfasts and convivial dinners where big business prospects are discussed. I thought, "Well, this'll be boring - niceties don't make for great drama", and sure enough, this film starts revealing all of the faults it's characters have, which are many and in a few cases criminal. Bette Davis features as Regina Hubbard Giddens, prospective owner of a new cotton mill (which will take advantage of the low wages offered in the area) who hopes to go in $75,000 for one third share, if she can convince husband Horace (Herbert Marshall) to go that route. Her brothers, Oscar (Carl Benton Reid) and Ben (Charles Dingle) have plans of their own if he refuses. Oscar's son Leo (Dan Duryea) works at the bank, and he can "borrow" $75,000 worth of Horace's railroad bonds, and return them before they're due and before Horace realises they're missing.

Regina sends her daughter Alexandra (Teresa Wright) to Baltimore to fetch her father, who is convalescing due to a heart condition he has. On the way she meets lively journalist friend David Hewitt (Richard Carlson) - who will be her love interest despite the fact that Oscar wants to marry her to his son Leo. The only other character of major interest is Oscar's wife Birdie (Patricia Collinge) - who he married for money, and whom he treats terribly. Birdie has been driven to alcoholism, and is a sad victim of the Hubbards' greed. Over the few days Horace is home, the scandal, greed, recriminations and criminal deeds provided me with enough drama to be very happy with The Little Foxes - a film which is scathing in the way it exposes the faults of money-focused cretins who care nothing for compassion, morals or empathy. Little wonder that Horace (who along with daughter Alexandra, Birdie and Hewitt make up the good side of the equation) is so ill, the way he's despised for his caution and altruism.

I don't know if the character flaws in these people were "little" foxes (they seemed pretty big to me) - but in the end Regina ends up going way too far in an explosive climax to the film. Everything plays out in a very enthralling manner, with Lillian Hellman adapting her own play, and writing scintillating dialogue that had me paying attention avidly. There was a rot to this family that belied all of the polite niceties paid on the surface, with unhappy marriages and sons and daughters pressured into being just as corrupt and scandalous as their parents. Alexandra intends to break this cycle, but Leo does exactly what he's told - Horace tries to fight it, but he's ill and can only go as far as his health permits him. He has a lot of power in a society that was still well and truly a patriarchy, but the scheming Regina (well played by Bette Davis) is wily and smart. I thought this film was well worth watching and deserving of the attention it got back in the day. A fine stately drama from William Wyler.

Glad to catch this one - nominated for 9 Oscars including Best Picture, up against the likes of Citizen Kane, The Maltese Falcon and eventual winner How Green Was My Valley.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The Little Foxes.

I think I’ve seen The Little Foxes.
Maybe….

Senso is described by some as one of the most beautiful movies ever made, so right there I have reason alone to see Luchino Visconti's tumultuous historical melodrama. It's certainly carefully crafted, with much attention to detail in both set decoration, art direction and composition. But none of that would mean anything if it weren't for it's searing story of lust, love, treason, dishonor and utter air-headed foolishness. It's set during the Third Italian War of Independence in 1866 - Austrian troops occupy Venice, and the Contessa Livia Serpieri (Alida Valli) along with her cousin, Marchese Roberto Ussoni (Massimo Girotti) are at an opera, participating in an anti-Austrian protest when Roberto hotheadedly demands a duel from one of the Austrian officers there, Lieutenant Franz Mahler (Farley Granger). Livia desperately tries to hose this down, for Roberto would surely die if the duel goes ahead - and this is how Franz becomes aware of the stunningly beautiful Contessa. She's in a loveless marriage to a staid aristocrat, and although she rebuffs Franz for a while, soon they're having a passionate affair.

So begins the romance central to Senso, and it's one that we can watch with reasonably open eyes. The Contessa however becomes obsessed with this man - her enemy - while at the same time trying to manage her life as a dutiful Italian patriot. The less she can see of him, and the more distant he gets, the worse her lovestruck emotions are. What plays out is certainly tragic, and I'd have applauded if I were in an audience - this is a wonderous movie with epic battle scenes, rich and splendorous locations and all the trappings of great 19th Century privilege. The costumes are impeccable, and Alida Valli's performance is tempestuously overwrought, energetic, and emotionally switched on from start to finish. You can tell when the film starts inside the La Fenice opera house that you're in for something visually magnificent. I want to go. Oh how I wish I was filthy rich and could just pick up, go to Venice, and check out that ornate, gilded opera house for myself - it's unbelievable. (This film helped with the reconstruction after the place burned in 1996 - what a horror, for that beautiful place to burn down.)

Thankfully the story and performances in Senso well and truly got under my skin - all of the visual power had a strong resonating, emotional and spiritual meaning to be appreciated with what we see. The final act is a bitter pill to swallow, but is also central to what the film is saying about lust, feelings, passion and the way love can be absolutely blinding, and also our complete downfall. Luchino Visconti is a very exacting director, and every scene is rich in detail and carefully mapped out - with attention to period authenticity. Watching someone blinded by love is like watching someone slowly die - you want to reach out and help somehow, but love is a madness with no easy cure. There's nothing you could say that would deviate Livia from her tragic trajectory. In the meantime, she's turned her back on her compatriots - making this doubly painful. For lovers of historical dramas, lush period cinema and operatic theatrics, then there's not much that can top Senso as far as the three combined go.

Glad to catch this one - #556 on Criterion, in Steven Jay Schneider's 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die and on Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" list.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Senso.

Another fan of What Happened Was...


yay



The fact that I never even heard of this movie a year ago feels shameful. It makes you wonder who many other great films have been completely buried over the years.

I know this film has a lot of fans, but I couldn’t get into it. For one thing, o didn’t care for what the characters had to say because it all seemed so banal. It wasn’t really interesting. Just two sad, lonely people trying to connect but not knowing how to, and it should have worked, but the dialogue wasn’t especially good.

A lot of the tension I got from the first act was from the first-date dynamics - which is sometimes like walking through a minefield. You're trying not to say the wrong thing with a person you know nearly nothing about - and as such those "wrong things" are at their least defined. A character will laugh at the wrong thing, and then have to hurriedly backtrack and make excuses. They'll have to accommodate something they only just spoke out against, once they learn how strongly the other one feels about it. I thought that tension had been honed to perfection in the dialogue - but it might depend on how much you want things to work out, or how much you identify with the characters. The specifics of what they're talking about don't matter much at all - it could be anything - but it's the way these two have to save themselves from mistakes, and adapt to what they learn from the other. That's what I got out of it anyway - I'm not saying that everyone should be the same. Once we get to Jackie's "What Happened Was..." story though, I thought it was a nice twist to the whole dynamic.

Yeah, I think ultimately my issue was I couldn’t identify with the main characters at all. Aside from the dialogue, which seemed like it was trying to say something, but ultimately felt flat….the characters themselves didn’t do anything for me.

This is why I love movies - you can head into a film feeling flat, and not particularly of the belief that what you're heading into will do anything to change that. I felt that way going into Riders of Justice, but when the credits started rolling I was excited about what I'd just seen, and in a positive frame of mind. I was on top of the world - because another film from my watchlist had impressed me a great deal. I'd had a lot of fun. Anders Thomas Jensen's mix of brutality and comedy struck a balance that ended up a perfect blend, and his film does more than that - it explores causality, chance and the way we search for meaning as a way of managing grief. It does this so well it could just about have been nominated for a Best International Feature Film Oscar. Jensen's films usually end up providing a lot of extraordinarily dark humour, and this is no different - Mads Mikkelsen, as always, makes for a superb straight man to be at the center of it all. Nikolaj Lie Kaas I recognise from the 'Department Q' films - and the rest of the Danish cast I'm not as familiar with.

The film starts off with the wife and daughter of Markus Hansen (Mikkelsen) being involved in a deadly train crash - his wife dies, but his daughter, Mathilde (Andrea Heick Gadeberg) survives. Markus has just served in Afghanistan, and is a man who's used to dealing with situations violently, so no matter what he tries he can't connect with Mathilde. On the train also was Otto Hoffmann (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) - he'd given up his seat for Markus's wife - and being an expert in probability he decides the the crash was no accident, mostly because on board was a man about to give evidence against the leader of the 'Riders of Justice' motorbike gang. Along with two of his colleagues, he takes this up with Markus - and all of them become embroiled in a deadly quest for vengeance and justice. In the meantime Mathilde is led to believe the men are counselors, and that Markus is working on his issues - instead of being on a killing spree. All throughout the film we deal with chance, grieving and the way we try to make sense out of the tragedies that befall us.

From Anders Thomas Jensen's filmography I'd only ever seen the excellent Adam's Apples, and in the meantime I'd kind of lost track. Coming back now to Riders of Justice, I kind of wonder why I haven't grabbed a hold of the rest of the films this guy has made. I mean, comedies as black as this one is are really my kind of thing, and Jensen has a sparkling wit - along with a knack for gathering the perfect cast. The movie also sparkles in the way it was shot, and the way we follow certain elements through the film which give us a window into causality. For example, the bike that was stolen from Mathilde which caused her to take the train in the first place - which was stolen specifically for one girl who specified to her grandfather that she wanted a blue bike. Many events like that led to the tragedy - it's a tapestry of cause and effect, with chance at the center of it all. Full of oddballs, moments of horrific violence, poignant scenes and a great story, I think Riders of Justice is a great addition to a Jensen's filmography. It's many different things at once, and therefore a pretty darned good movie.

Glad to catch this one - 96% on Rotten Tomatoes and 7.5/10 on the IMDb - yet it still took me by surprise.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Riders of Justice.

Nothing ever really changes, though we'd like to think it will. Cairo 30, set in 1930s Egypt, has at it's core a group of characters who are either sticking to their ideals, or selling out. Ali Taha (Abdelaziz Mikewy), who believes in socialism and who will never cease fighting for the cause would rather die than work with the system. Mahgoub Abdel Dayem (Hamdy Ahmed) though - desperately poor and with a sick father at home, and with his studies at university nearly finished, is desperate. Then there's Ali's love, Ihsan (Soad Hosny) - the poorest of them all, and with a hungry family begging her to marry someone wealthy to save them. When Mahgoub is offered a government job which includes marrying Ihsan so an older man, a minister (Ahmed Mazhar), can have an affair with her, both Mahgoub and Ihsan will have to come to terms with what they're doing for a taste of the good life - which might not taste that nice after all. In the meantime, Mahgoub falls in love with Ihsan despite their marriage being a sham.

Cairo 30 is a strong film from Egypt, especially when it's posing questions about corruption and the fact that when one government or minister takes over from another, the system invariably invites the same dirty process to repeat itself. The melodrama can start to resemble a soap opera at certain times, especially during the film's overwrought climax - the tangled interpersonal situations of our characters often maximizing their unhappiness even when they get what they want. The choices for those who aren't already wealthy lead down two unfortunate roads - either hold to your principles and stay poor, downtrodden and persecuted or else sell your body and/or ideals, losing your friends and dignity as you come face to face with your own shame every night. The film has a very neo-realist feel to it, and promotes social activism as a way to ease the plight of the masses stuck in a never-ending cycle of poverty and injustice.

This film was based on a novel written by Naguib Mahfouz, but whatever the Mahfouzes and Ali Tahas of this world were hoping to inspire, it hasn't arisen yet. The Cairo of 2024 looks just as corrupt as the Cairo of 1933 - which gives a lot of the supremely hopeful Cairo 30 an air of naivete. Still - it's fair warning to those who think "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" is a fair enough compromise after three to five years of college and activism. There are some clever shots in this, and it's filmed and directed quite well - so when you add everything up it remains a classic Egyptian film (that shot when Mahgoub sits in front of the hunting trophy so it looks like he has the devil's horns when he agrees to get married is both overkill and wonderful at the same time.) Keep an eye out and you'll see many instances where shots are framed in relation to clues about wealth and poverty. It's not quite Mr Smith Goes to Washington, but remains a bright spot on the cinematic landscape from where it came from.

Glad to catch this one - Egypt's submission for Best Foreign Feature Academy Award for 1967 (it wasn't ultimately selected - no Egyptian film has ever made it to nomination stage as of yet.)




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Cairo 30.

This is one I really loved. I agree with you that it transcends and yet it still very much feels Horror. To me, a lot of times, when Horror movies transcend they end up leaving the Horror behind. This one does not.

Closely Watched Trains is an absolute classic. Deliriously funny, yet so delicately touching and tragic - that describes watching young Miloš Hrma (Václav Neckář) become a man while working as a train dispatcher at a small station in occupied Czechoslovakia during the closing stages of the Second World War. His love is conductor Máša (Jitka Bendová - crazy Austin Powers girl name) - impossibly beautiful and carefree. Miloš though, is anything but - at his first attempt at lovemaking with Máša his equipment didn't function properly, leaving the young man at the end of his tether and attempting to leave this world. In the meantime war seems to constantly pass by the station - soldiers, equipment, partisans and the dreaded councilor Zedníček (Vlastimil Brodský) - as pro-Nazi as ever despite the fact that the Third Reich is crumbling in front of everyone's eyes. This all combines into some truly bittersweet cinema that counts as a truly great movie.

I never expected this film to knock me off my feet as quickly as it did, with Miloš Hrma's crazy family history (his hypnotist grandfather tried to stop the German panzer advance with the powers of his mind), and with successive generations of malingerers guiding him to his current posting - for becoming a train dispatcher means he won't have to do anything, just like his ancestors. His fellow dispatchers and station masters are either eccentric or oversexed, and there's so much fun to be had with them that what could have been a drab location-based drama becomes a sparkling comedic slice of life. All the while Miloš goes through that familiar process of finding his place in the world and gaining experience. I love the way Jiří Menzel gives us glimpses of the war and outside world as it passes everyone by - and it's as if everyone who works at the station has a slightly faded but at the same time accurate gauge on what is going on in the world and how the war is going. Máša passes by and is dazzling - like a girl I used to know.

Václav Neckář is so good in the lead role - a performance which shouldn't be overlooked, but one which can glide by unnoticed because he successfully gets us to forget he's just a performer. I really believed in what I was seeing - which must be the greatest compliment an actor can get. Many personality types populate the film, but it's central core consists of the undeniable awkwardness most budding young men have when they've only just left childhood behind the day before. Máša wants to make love with her uncle in the next room and within eyesight - and everyone else seems to be able to do it whenever and wherever - but you understand why Miloš suffers from the anxiety he does, because of his inexperience and shyness. As the film evolves, there are plenty of shocks and surprises in store for those watching - and I was left mouth agape by the finale which just knocks you over and leaves you stunned. Overall, there's so many reasons to praise Closely Watched Trains, but the main thing is seeing it and admiring the fine work done by Jiří Menzel. Wonderful, and all-encompassing.

Glad to catch this one - Criterion #131 and in Stephen J. Schneider's 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Closely Watched Trains.

Polytechnique is very harrowing and among Villeneuve’s best.

Really liked Closely Watched Trains. I've only seen three Czech films (The Shop on Main Street, The Firemen's Ball and CWT) but enjoyed them all.

We learn about school shootings by way of the media, and we're appropriately horrified for the most part - but I think everyone should have to go through the absolutely terrible experience at least to some degree, because it's too easy for most of us to just move on. Well, I think Denis Villeneuve actually succeeds in doing that via his approach here - he had the unenviable task to not turn Polytechnique (about the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre) into a horror film, or anything that could be described as glamorized or exciting. His straightforward technique gives us a feeling that we're there - especially when he opens the film with an unexpected moment of loud gunfire and violence, giving us as much of a fright as the terrified students who went through the ordeal. The film especially focuses on the experience of two different students - Jean-François (Sébastien Huberdeau) and Valérie (Karine Vanasse), both of whom get a before, during and after segment of the story. The killer (played by Maxim Gaudette) and his actions speak for themselves.

In the classroom where he began his rampage, the killer separated the males from females and then ordered the former to leave, under the threat of deadly force, which they did. How I wish those guys had of taken the chance to run straight at him and try to overpower the gunman - and so does Jean-François, who lives with the guilt after the tragedy. He wishes he'd done something more - and the ironic thing is, if he had he would have been conforming to the gender roles the killer was espousing, being a rabid anti-feminist. Would I have risked my life? I'm sad to say I would have been too frightened, and I'd have probably thought "perhaps he's just taking hostages" to soothe my troubled conscience. Seems like everyone there was a victim, with the survivors saddled with guilt and trauma. The sound of the gun is heightened in the film - so we hear a deafening crack every time it's fired. Comes across as absolutely terrifying, and something a person who was there would never forget.

Polytechnique was a frightening and really sad experience - I don't think it was a senseless movie just made for the sake of entertainment and exploitation. I think it puts the viewer in touch with what the victims of school shootings go through - both those actually harmed by a gunman, and those who try to help or flee. That's why I don't criticize what Villeneuve has done here - because I think it's necessary for people to understand what these kids (and teachers) have to experience and live with for the rest of their lives - and in some cases the death toll continues to climb as some commit suicide because they decide they can't live with what they've been burdened with. Any movie that puts us in touch with that is worth praise. The film is shocking, but it doesn't place any emphasis on horror, despite feeling very real and ghastly. Mostly what it does is remind us of how fragile we are, and how resilient we can be in our response.

Glad to catch this one - nominated for the C.I.C.A.E. Award at Cannes, and Denis Villeneuve's first 'post-sabbatical' film.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Polytechnique.

Okay, so - this film is part of a four-film series called 'Tales of the Four Seasons' from Eric Rohmer - the third to be exact. I haven't seen the first two, but by the looks of it there's little if any interconnection between them. A Summer's Tale is quite nice - about a young man, Gaspard (Melvil Poupaud) who likes to let fate decide his romantic future for him. But fate deals him a hand he never could have expected when he meets Margot (Amanda Langlet) - a waitress who he gets on so well with that they often walk for hours just talking. Although there's a spark there, Gaspard is waiting for his current girlfriend, Léna (Aurelia Nolin) to arrive in the seaside town of Dinard to be with him, and in the interim meets the beautiful and alluring Solène (Gwenaëlle Simon) as well. Gaspard has no idea who he should be with, and as he chops and changes the various girls become frustrated with him not just taking the plunge instead of hedging his bets. He's desperate for fate to swoop in and decide matters for him - but when he chooses another because one of the girls disappoints him, the new one feels like a substitute. Will fate give him an out?

The fact that this was filmed in the seaside towns of Dinard, Saint Malo and Saint Lunaire adds much sparkling warmth to this movie - idling around in these locations becomes intoxicating and I could very well imagine falling in love in such places. Although having three beautiful young women vying for your affections sounds like a young man's dream, you can tell that Gaspard is becoming more and more troubled as the film progresses - Melvil Poupaud not giving anything away as to how he's feeling aside from worried frustration, and the fact that he thinks over everything in his life very carefully. He's determined not to make the wrong choice, and unwilling to concede the fact that much of life is a gamble and you have to make your choice and stick to it - as fate prevaricates, so does he. Gaspard has something of an artist's temperament, and writes songs along with playing acoustic guitar. One of the shanties he makes up is really cool, and this adds another complex layer to the character - making him not as risible as he might sound considering the way he treats these three beautiful women - and they likewise often forgive him his hesitancy.

A Summer's Tale is full of interesting, probing dialogue - most of which comes from Gaspard and Margot as they walk about the environs of the town. These two people are at an age of self-discovery, with both having curious, intelligent minds. When you follow them, the bright visuals and their probing make for a movie that feels very alive with the boundless energy and enthusiasm of youth. Gaspard pretends he knows everything about who he is, but I sense that he's justifying his actions at times, without being wholly cognizant of why he does what he does - for he often acts at odds with much he's already said. He's somewhat crafty, as Margot notes. Margot seems like the person he really should be with, for it's only when he's with her that he relaxes, and acts naturally. They feed off each other's thirst for knowledge and understanding, and their minds are as one sometimes. If only Gaspard could be more decisive. I enjoyed this film - it flashed by in no time at all, and I always wanted to know what was going to happen next, while appreciating it's beauty and simplicity. Now I'll have to check out Rohmer's other 'Four Seasons' tales.

Glad to catch this one - screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival. Part of the Criterion Collection's 'Eric Rohmer’s Tales of the Four Seasons' - #1206.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch A Summer's Tale.

Much like Ozu, I have a great amount of difficulty telling a lot of Rohmer's films apart from each other. They all seem to exist on the same vibe, frequently have interchangeable titles, and are all invariably very good to great. You can't go wrong with any of them if you like one. But it always poses the problem with me that I never know which ones I've seen and which ones I've yet to. I think I've seen that one. I'm sure it was very good (or maybe great)


Rohmer's the boss.

Begotten is most famous for it's first scene - God disemboweling himself in jerky, spasmodic motions, drawing internal organs from within himself before he dies and Mother Earth emerging from within. E. Elias Merhige seems to have wanted to make this image as disturbing as possible, and he succeeds in form, motion and content - all fronts. The look of the film is as if it were centuries old, degraded and from a time and place almost incomprehensible to us. What follows after is the painful birth of life on Earth through ritual - one could almost suggest that this is a process that has been carried out countless times before, and the figures who herald each stage eternal beings with formless faces and unknowable motivations. The sound - repetitive and effective, gives voice to pain, horror, and a kind of natural process hidden within nature itself. You can only just make out what's going on, and that it's something horrible. But birth is painful isn't it? Pain is the foundation of life and evolution.

I must say, as much as I appreciate the work of art Begotten is, arthouse movies such as this are a harder artform to appreciate than, say, paintings. I mean, I can walk away from a painting when I'm finished, but Begotten kind of drags on, and on, as much as it's disturbing and interesting me. I think it works better if you don't sit down and watch the full 72 minutes from start to finish, but take moments and sections alone from time to time. It's a film that repeats, with every stage of this birthing process of life a slog, with some poor figure being dragged around, brutalized while in pain and distress, and undergoing some kind of ritual transformation. I respect it, but that doesn't mean I get a lot out of sitting and watching it. It gets to be a little like hearing about someone's dream in specific detail - and the film even looks a little bit like what we'd imagine a person's dream recorded on tape would look and sound like. That said, it's not something you will ever, ever forget in a hurry.

Rating this is really tough - I'm used to rating films relative to each other, but there's not a lot Begotten can be compared to really. As far as experimental art films go it's not only really good, it's one of the most famous - and probably one of the most viewed among mainstream film watchers. It successfully gives the viewer a feel of something that exists beyond human experience - in an almost religious sense. I don't particularly enjoy watching it for long periods. I was drawn into it by the ghostly image of God cutting himself with a razor blade - there's little as haunting out there than this vision of such a deformed, spectral being doing something as horrible in so horrible a way. It's hypnotic, and almost something you can't look away from. Definitely the highlight of the film, and an original and enduring vision. So, all-up, it is what it is folks - dredged up from the depths of one person's fevered imagination. A landmark film, but not for everyone - or even many perhaps.

Glad to catch this one - a film of enormous influence, especially once the internet made it possible for it to gain a wide audience.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Begotten.

The opening is easily among the most disturbing images ever put to film. That can't be overstated. The rest of the film doesn't mean much to me though.