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Birth (2004) - Glazer
Careless whisper
The set-up? Anna is about to remarry after a decade of widowhood. As her future husband admits it's been a long road for the both of them. When they announce the actual date at a birthday party, a stranger---a boy who almost seems to have materialized like a ghost out of the darkness begs her not to remarry.
The character of Anna (Nicole Kidman) is front and center in the film. She's not unlike one of those expensive porcelain statues lining her spacious upper class apartment. She's rather delicate and vulnerable in this refined world of good manners and proper breeding. Her fiancé (Danny Huston) gets comments like "Well done, old chap" and "Jolly good", like he had made a ripping good play at croquet on the grassy knoll of some private members club instead of getting her to openly declare her love to him.
Before leaving for the opera one night. This silliness has gone on long enough. Joseph and Anna go downstairs to confront Sean and warn him to end his silly game; before entering the elevator, she glances back, catching Sean collapsing in the hallway. The next scene, has them dashing down the theatre aisle rushing to their seats, the orchestra plays a foreboding riff that the play is about to begin. Then the camera moves in and holds on her face, as if she had just dropped a stone down a bottomless pit and she's listening for it to touch bottom. Then somewhere deep in the fathoms, it lands faintly. What if the boy is not lying? What if her dead husband was really reincarnated?
We can easily surmise why Anna fell in love with her first husband. Passion. Looking around her world of privilege, that's just not something in abundant supply. Watch as she leaves her husband's grave marker early in the film, she stumbles slightly. After so much time, that was still a difficult decision. Did she ask for his permission?
Likes? The curious title, given the film is basically a study in grief. What does that refer to? The birth of what? The set decoration; the flower arrangements with merely a hint of a bouquet. The strange symmetry of their faces which draws them together. The waiting areas with marble benches and the alcoves with couches where people sit and wait to be received. In a scene where Anna brings Sean back to his family, they are driven through the night in an esprit (spirit) taxi cab.
Alexandre's Desplat's slightly orchestral score gets numerous opportunities to shine. The opening movement returns a couple times in the film with slight variations. During the climax scenes, I particularly liked the faint sound of a life support machine discreetly trying to pump oxygen into the dying relationship.
Although the director has clearly stumbled badly by trying to wrap everything up with a neat and tidy bow---explaining away the mystery. Despite his efforts, some of it remains. How long is grief? What about the dooms of love? How long do they last? Is it possible one could still hopelessly love someone 10 years after their death? In the last scene of the film, over the laughter and music of her wedding reception, Anna has clearly heard her dead husband calling to her from the ocean.
Some people really love Glazer's first film, "Sexy beast". And after reading the synopsis for his unreleased third film, "Under the Skin" where alien cannibals kidnap unsuspecting hitchhikers and ship them to off world restaurants specializing in human dishes. (Good Gawd!
) I think his second effort, "Birth" will still be his best film to date.
P.S. Although not quite the low hanging fruit I once imagined, I assumed most of the audience with a little effort (and tippy toes) would reach up and grasp the thematic what if? contained within the film. For instance, if you change the sex of the two main characters: what if a 37 year old man was falling desperately in love with a 10 year girl, the same movie becomes unfilmable and unwatchable; and may even gotten the director arrested for public indecency. Ten years later (and the third time I’ve seen this gorgeous movie) I realize this film now has a conceptual degree of difficulty which is simply beyond the reach of the typical popcorn and bubble gum crowd.
Birth— ★★★★
Careless whisper
The set-up? Anna is about to remarry after a decade of widowhood. As her future husband admits it's been a long road for the both of them. When they announce the actual date at a birthday party, a stranger---a boy who almost seems to have materialized like a ghost out of the darkness begs her not to remarry.
The character of Anna (Nicole Kidman) is front and center in the film. She's not unlike one of those expensive porcelain statues lining her spacious upper class apartment. She's rather delicate and vulnerable in this refined world of good manners and proper breeding. Her fiancé (Danny Huston) gets comments like "Well done, old chap" and "Jolly good", like he had made a ripping good play at croquet on the grassy knoll of some private members club instead of getting her to openly declare her love to him.
Before leaving for the opera one night. This silliness has gone on long enough. Joseph and Anna go downstairs to confront Sean and warn him to end his silly game; before entering the elevator, she glances back, catching Sean collapsing in the hallway. The next scene, has them dashing down the theatre aisle rushing to their seats, the orchestra plays a foreboding riff that the play is about to begin. Then the camera moves in and holds on her face, as if she had just dropped a stone down a bottomless pit and she's listening for it to touch bottom. Then somewhere deep in the fathoms, it lands faintly. What if the boy is not lying? What if her dead husband was really reincarnated?
We can easily surmise why Anna fell in love with her first husband. Passion. Looking around her world of privilege, that's just not something in abundant supply. Watch as she leaves her husband's grave marker early in the film, she stumbles slightly. After so much time, that was still a difficult decision. Did she ask for his permission?
Likes? The curious title, given the film is basically a study in grief. What does that refer to? The birth of what? The set decoration; the flower arrangements with merely a hint of a bouquet. The strange symmetry of their faces which draws them together. The waiting areas with marble benches and the alcoves with couches where people sit and wait to be received. In a scene where Anna brings Sean back to his family, they are driven through the night in an esprit (spirit) taxi cab.
Alexandre's Desplat's slightly orchestral score gets numerous opportunities to shine. The opening movement returns a couple times in the film with slight variations. During the climax scenes, I particularly liked the faint sound of a life support machine discreetly trying to pump oxygen into the dying relationship.
Although the director has clearly stumbled badly by trying to wrap everything up with a neat and tidy bow---explaining away the mystery. Despite his efforts, some of it remains. How long is grief? What about the dooms of love? How long do they last? Is it possible one could still hopelessly love someone 10 years after their death? In the last scene of the film, over the laughter and music of her wedding reception, Anna has clearly heard her dead husband calling to her from the ocean.
Some people really love Glazer's first film, "Sexy beast". And after reading the synopsis for his unreleased third film, "Under the Skin" where alien cannibals kidnap unsuspecting hitchhikers and ship them to off world restaurants specializing in human dishes. (Good Gawd!
) I think his second effort, "Birth" will still be his best film to date. P.S. Although not quite the low hanging fruit I once imagined, I assumed most of the audience with a little effort (and tippy toes) would reach up and grasp the thematic what if? contained within the film. For instance, if you change the sex of the two main characters: what if a 37 year old man was falling desperately in love with a 10 year girl, the same movie becomes unfilmable and unwatchable; and may even gotten the director arrested for public indecency. Ten years later (and the third time I’ve seen this gorgeous movie) I realize this film now has a conceptual degree of difficulty which is simply beyond the reach of the typical popcorn and bubble gum crowd.
Birth— ★★★★