Begotten

Year: 1991

Grade: B

Country: USA

Director: Merhige

Review

one of the most insane films i’ve ever seen. it’s from the director of suspect zero and shadow of the vampire, neither of which really did it for me. this film, though, at the very least, had me thoroughly interested. the film has no dialogue and, according to allmovie.com, is shot on black and white reversal and then shot again onto black and white negatives. the end result is a very bleached and stark looking picture. the contrast between the white and black is very pronounced and there is a lot of visible grain in the picture as well. the look is a cross between a snuff film and the film within the film “ring;” and the subject matter is equally dark. apparently the “story” is about god killing himself, giving rise to mother earth, who impregnates herself with the dead god’s semen, and she then gives birth to “son of earth.” afterwards we see a group of trolls (which kind of reminded me of the creatures in star wars) torture the mother and son. it’s not very easy to follow, in part because there is no narrative (no dialogue, no intertitles, etc.) and the picture is so muddled that sometimes you don’t even know what you’re seeing. it’s a haunting film and one that probably takes a couple viewings to understand in any real way. the inclination might be to write it off as an artsy-fartsy load of junk, but there’s both real art and real technique in the film. it’s sort of the visual equivalent of a grindcore album, and as such it takes a certain degree of patience to see through the grittiness. i’ll be the first to admit that it’s not a very fun film to watch, but it’s the kind of film i’ll probably be thinking about for a while. p.s. i have no idea why i put this in my netflix queue, but i’m glad i did.