Starring Nicole Kidman, Cameron Bright,
Danny Huston and Lauren Bacall
Directed by Jonathan Glazer
USA 2004
96 mins
Our last movie 'The Manchurian Candidate' featured at its heart a strange, twisted mother son relationship - one that transgresses the normal boundaries of human behaviour. In 'Birth' there is the possibility of an even stranger bond between a male child and a grown woman.
Anna, whose husband Sean died suddenly 10 years earlier, is about to marry her boyfriend Joseph when she meets a young boy, also called Sean, who claims to be the reincarnation of her dead partner. Sean tells her not to go through with the wedding. She and Joseph later confront the boy but in the subsequent days he reveals a disturbingly intimate knowledge of her dead husband and of the details of their relationship...
The British director of 'Birth' Jonathan Glazer is known as one of the most talented and visionary commercials directors working today. His iconic 1999 ad 'Surfer' - made for Guinness - was voted best commercial of all time in a poll of Channel 4 viewers. In all Glazer has made only three films since his debut in 2000 with the electrifying British gangster film 'Sexy Beast'. His most recent movie - the science fiction picture 'Under The Skin' is perhaps the most extraordinary British film of recent years - a brilliant synthesis that combines actors and non actors with hallucinogenic visuals and a mesmeric electronic score by Mica Levi.
'Birth', Glazer's second film, is a lost work - some would say masterpiece. Both controversial and divisive - it was booed and feted on it's original release with some observers condemning a scene in which Kidman shares a bath with the young Sean.
'Birth' was written by Jean Claude Carrière - one of France's most celebrated screenwriters - best known as a long-time collaborator with the great surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel.
A stellar cast includes Nicole Kidman as Anna with Danny Huston playing Joseph. The Hollywood legend Lauren Bacall, aged 80, plays Anna's mother.
This is a rare opportunity to see 'Birth' - it will puzzle you, disturb you and quite possibly infuriate you - but you are likely to be thinking and talking about it for days afterwards...
