Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Film As Artifact (or vice versa), 15 Jan 2005
"Begotten" is Elias Merhige's first film; he started out as director of the 'theaterofmaterial" and went on to direct the film "Shadow of the Vampire". This is an extremely odd film that ideally should have turned up anonymously in someone's basement or an archaeological site; it looks like a much-battered silent film made by people who knew how to work a movie camera but were ignorant of cinematic conventions. But they had a mythic story they desperately wanted to tell to future generations, and so they told it.A God-like being is dying in agony and uses a straight razor to speed the process. A woman is born from his corpse and impregnates herself, giving birth to a helpless, palsied creature who is deified and then sacrificed by the tribal creatures who inhabit his world. The cycle of life starts over again as plants spring up from the spot where his body and the body of his mother are buried. It sounds grim, and it is, but there is a note of hope at the end. But still-- this is a very disturbing movie. The soundtrack consists mostly of natural sounds (there is no dialogue); as mentioned before the image quality is that of a very old silent movie (Merhige went to great lengths to make it look that way), and the horrific episodes look authentic precisely because they aren't glossy or art-directed. This is not a film for all tastes, but the viewers who appreciate it will find it to be extremely haunting.
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5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Do not be... begotten. For the things that dwell..., 5 Mar 2006
Neglect “Begotten”, for some parts of this film may ooze dark acid in your eyes. Don’t meditate on the melody ridden soundtrack, for some fibres and tones tend to stick... eagerly.
Do not miss any chance to burn “Begotten” on the Stake of Reason, for in some long lost poem your name is mentionned – you are a prophet, as long as you don’t know what is shown here, as long as you do not get lost in its rhymes. Howl, burst out, pray, but sink not into oblivion as soon as “Begotten” digs it’s claws in the back of your skull.
For in many ear’s to come you will be confined to foolish, fake white, crumbled walls, chained to an unreasonably unreadable epigraph.Sing...
... for as long as you cry out words, you can’t swallowed those which are offered to you here in “Begotten”.
And mind you, although no single word is uttered throu out this ‘thing’, it’s the splatter of a non-defying, outstanding language that creeps into your veins and heart – and when that happens, convulsions will take over and mend with seizures and dark, atonal chants from way deep in the earth. For there lays the Spastic Son burried, son of the tortured Mother Naure and The God Who Mutilates Himself.
Alpha or omega, Genises or Apocalypse – a film that grainy it loks like the sandstorms hoovering over Golgotha isn’t to be trusted. It isn’t to be... anything.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
good idea but ultimately boring film, 13 Jun 2007
this film is in black and white, without dialogue and can be disturbing. It sounded great to me so i made sure i got around to seeing it. Unfortunately i was quite dissapointed.
what the other reviews fail to mention is that not very much actually happens. the film crawls along at a snails pace and almost made me fall asleep a few times. I did however like the way it was filmed in black and white with no dialogue, making it very creepy. as the film starts we see how beautifuly directed this film is and the audio is very effective at setting an atmosphere. I just found the things that were actually happening on screen to be very dull indeed.
I'm sure others would argue that this is a work of art but i find that a lame excuse for the film being overlong, slow paced and ultimately boring. I give it two stars for the audio and how good the film looks with the black and white visual but this wares off after 10 minutes and then your left with a film where not a lot happens.
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