Birth (Jonathan Glazer, 2004)

[crimlaw]

Curious whether Criterion’s very own staff are the ones actually objecting to the release of Last Tango in Paris or, for that matter, Annie Hall and Manhattan, and not some concern for the market or social media backlash.

[relaxok]

Having just finally seen this film, the 'controversial' bits seem fairly inconsequential to me and I can't believe so much ink was spilled about it even on this forum.

What I did not expect though, was to see one of the greatest films of all time. I may have to rewatch Sexy Beast, as I don't remember loving it. Under The Skin is one of my favorite films of the 21st century. And then Zone Of Interest disappointed me. This however? Absolutely glorious, and I cannot stop thinking about it. And what a score.

I have not even seen it a second time yet, but at this current moment it is probably in my top 10 films of all time.

I was going to start writing some small details about the film but I feel like it would go on for pages..

Many mysteries deep within this one..

[therewillbeblus]

I think this film is great in part for its lack of mysteries, in that Glazer lends us many tangible reveals about human experience that come from the exposure to mystery. I don't particularly care about the surface-level information others gripe about: This is a movie that exhibits the very concrete consequences of vulnerability in the face of faith, and how challenging that is to make 'work' with a faithless life on earth. And when I say that, I don't mean that these people aren't religious or practicing spiritual practices - they could all be very spiritual... but the western world has been constructed to reinforce action, so empowerment, justice, communication, coping.. all with fellow man and systems and without God. Whether you bring faith in or not matters to an extent, but the corporeal world disinvites too much attention on the mysteries and faith, because doing so would give up power and attention that are crucial to apply consciously and with confidence. Faith risks confidence, risks a vulnerability that might flood like an unrepairable dam.. and it's in the presence of 'belief' and convictions that are personal to you (a personalized Higher Power or version of God is often talked about even in religious communities who may broadly conceive of God in a similar way, even if specifically it's about an intimate, unexplainable relationship) that we become disconnected to our world, realize our limitations, and may begin to experience a greater satisfaction from that faith than the vehicles to make meaning we've put in place to distract from that greater mystery, to ground us to a milieu marginalizing faith's utility. Through doing this, Glazer invites us to wonder what we're all missing by refusing to entertain the willingness to be agnostic, and then simultaneously proves exactly why it's unsafe to engage in belief within a tactile space populated by other agents who won't support the exploration.

It's of apiece with The Zone of Interest even more than his other two, because it shows both the enormous value in this practice, as well as the futility of it; Glazer knows the birth of the idea in Kidman's mind led to a kind of pre-catharsis she needed to work through to get to the next stage of, but also details its fundamental suffering and objective superfluousness in the plot/character reveal. When you tackle a subject like grief and loss -which more than any other experience cannot and should not be compared (and clinicians are schooled to prepare for this, specifically), nor does it follow a linear or predictable path- you are essentially drawing a portrait of the most intense battle a human being has with their limitations, which reveals concrete vulnerabilities. I think it's bold and strong, but it doesn't give me the same kind of life-changing sobriety to what movies can do, and yet - It never surprises me why this film ranks so highly for so many people.

There's also a much more interesting idea embedded in this film related to these concepts: How seemingly-random, or intrinsically meaningless events often lead us to these profound experiences when we bring our own context. A lot of people in certain groups will define their Higher Power as the opportunities that come when one opens their mind to engage with the world on terms obstructed by our protective rigidities that limit scope of field. And so, all the gripes about the reveal don't really matter in that case, nor do claims of audience-manipulation, because if we felt manipulated it's because we weren't shedding our own protective barriers to engage with the film's deeper meaning -of the drive to locate unconditional subjective meaning- which keeps us safely engaging on the surface level, like Joseph. And like his most recent film, Glazer recognizes this has purpose and is valid under one's own personal context. But he won't allow for the larger context to go ignored in his films. In Sexy Beast, nobody's manners, actions, inactions, nothing can stop Don from getting what he wants, and nothing can stop Gal from taking the job, not even the most lethal intervention. In Birth, the loss becomes so consuming, and the attempts to override it futile in friction with organic processing, that it would've bubbled up under any offering strong enough to draw that part out - yet it also shows what absurd and unrealistic and fantastical interventions we rely on to have a 'spiritual experience' and unblend from our realities to consider faith. In Under the Skin, we're constantly moving between the drive for connection and comparing our context to an alien one, that still shares the same threats as we do, even if abiding by a logic of intervention we cannot fathom and that Glazer respectfully doesn't bother trying to.