Birth... but of what?

Well, I take to pen and paper (or I/O gates and photons as it may be) after a long time to write - of all things - a movie review! I'm not in the habit of writing those, but we ("we" being my wife and I, my friends and I, my family and I) discuss movies all the time, as do most people I would think, so it's not that strange I suppose.

Anyway, we just watched Birth, as the title might suggest. And at this point let me note in bold script:

SPOILERS AHEAD DO NOT READ IF YOU WISH TO WATCH THE MOVIE

I cannot say I got the point. Those of you who did, pray enlighten me. Let me start with the good things about the movie! For one, it was 90 minutes in length and not the customary 120 - thank god. And for another the photography was good - partially the direction too. As Melusina pointed out, the shots were framed perfectly, use of color, contour, texture was superb.

The script was probably written on a napkin - it would certainly fit. No plot to speak of, forced, sparse dialogue here and there, stiff acting. The director persisted on long (and I mean long) close-ups mainly of Nicole Kidman, but also of the other actors. I suppose the latter were supposed to convey some tension, some flowing procession of emotions. Well, they didn't. And at the end, the bride-in-the-water-lamenting-her-lost-love-as-well-as-her-new-life-full-
of-convention, I suppose it was meant to be strong and tragic, but it made me laugh. It seemed contrived, shallow and silly. The ocean looked great though!

Ok, what about content though? Ideas? Philosophy? Here's my take: The writers tried I suppose to touch upon many subjects and come up with a mix of metaphysical thriller and social drama.

First of all, resurrection. One might argue that resurrection has been done to death (forgive the pun) and one might be right. It could have been an interesting point, except we are given no hint (and of course no clear explanation) about what's going on. The boy is and is not. It was a fluke, a possession, a transmigration, psychic disease, a little bit of everything - take your pick.

Second, pedophilia. An interesting subject (doubly so, because here it would be the rarer type - a woman and a small boy) but again, it is hardly scraped. Quite the contrary, actually, there is no exploration of the issue, no statement, no research, no soul searching. Rather, there is some glint of the writer(s)' alarming inner pedophilic urges surfacing in "staged" and awkward situations, for which - again - no explanation is given, no hint, no innuendo. As a sidenote, I don't think it's proper to put a ten year old in a bathtub together with a naked woman, so I 'm hoping this was somehow bluescreened and tailored. This could be a discussion for a different post perhaps.

Third, relationships of "Anna's" class - but also any other social class. The woman, the dead husband, the "terrible secret" (the lover), the lover's husband. Tired triangles, repeated patterns with no depth at all. Nothing.

In the end, I could go so far as to classify this as one of the worst movies I've ever seen, right up there with "Crash" (the David Cronenberg one) and a couple of others. A pity, because it looked promising. A pity, because it could have touched upon issues with more courage. A pity, because the ensemble was good - there could have been some good acting in a different movie. A pity, because the writers could have used the perfectly good napkin to wipe instead and not wasted it...