KISSING A TEN YEAR OLD BOY
*Warning: this is me spoiling the plot of the film ‘Birth’*
The film ‘Birth‘ will make you uncomfortable. Imagine you are watching a character played by Nicole Kidman bending down to kiss a child the way she would kiss the husband she has loved and lost. As you watch it you wonder if she is about to do what you think she is going to do and then she does.
She has her reasons. She thinks the child is her husband.
Visually this scene is challenging but not so much you have to look away. This is no ‘Irréversible.’ The film is odd (though a natural fit for Nicole Kidman’s back catalogue) and I can’t think who I would recommend it to, what friend I would urge to go see.
The plot makes it difficult to figure out what exactly is going on. The sister-in-law makes a good claim, neatly exposing why the child is not the dead husband, and in hindsight the sequence of events suggests she is spot on. Yet, all still doesn’t quite add up.
With Kidman, Lauren Bacall and Danny Huston staring intensely throughout, it feels as though there is one weighty actor too many pulling the story along. It makes me want to open a window for some air.
That said it is beautiful. Glazer’s photography is always so rich. The film reminds me of staring at old paintings in the Louvre and reading the narrative in the faces, gestures and colour.
It has one of the most beautiful opening scenes of a film I have ever seen.
I hear Jonathan Glazer has a new film in the works, I wish he would make films more often. He’s a brilliant filmmaker and his advertising/music video CV is intimidating.
