Underrated Movie of the Month Club: Birth

Birth, starring Nicole Kidman, was released to little fanfare in the spring of 2004. The movie received quietly mixed reviews, and a brief moment in the media spotlight for a controversial adult/child relationship between Kidman and a ten-year-old boy who claimed to be her reincarnated husband, specifically for a scene where the two share a bath together. Most of the gossip came and went because, while it makes for great publicity fodder, the actual content of the movie doesn’t really provide enough cause to gripe (a few years later, Dakota Fanning’s rape scene in Hounddog (2007) generated a similar, and much more legitimate, cause for concern). Other than a handful of protesters in the back row, Birth disappeared from theaters and the public psyche fairly quickly, and now it enjoys a quiet life of not being rented on Netflix. That’s unfortunate for a movie this rich in mood, with such an expertly controlled tone. And while not for all tastes, the film certainly makes a strong case for a second chance.

The movie begins with a man named Sean jogging in Central Park—he has a heart attack and collapses, then the film cuts to a child being born. 10 years later, the jogger’s widow (Nicole Kidman) has finally accepted a marriage proposal from Joseph (Danny Huston) and seems to be moving on. But out of the blue, a kid named Sean shows up claiming to actually be Sean, her late hubby, and warns her not to marry Joseph.

That’s the nuts and bolts of how the story begins—then, she grapples with the implications of even asking “Could it be true?” especially since her heart has not truly let go; meanwhile, her new fiancé, Joseph, tries to act supportive by being rational, applying logic to a situation that has no room for it. Love is kinda like that, too—unjustifiable to others, and elusive in its meaning, even to ourselves. In Birth, we go along with Kidman as she struggles to keep her wits, while falling deeply for the concept of love, disguised as a person–in this case, manifested in Sean, the child.

There are so many surface details about the plot that sound ridiculous, in part because we’ve heard them all before. The very idea of the dead husband reincarnated as another person who then attempts to win back his true love, calls to mind Chances Are, the laughable 80’s rom-com with Cybil Shepherd and Robert Downey, Jr. The triumph of Birth is that it disregards any such comparison by taking the material into more challenging areas, almost daring the audience to dislike it – it’s as if Kubrick had directed Lolita with the languid tension he brought to The Shining. In addition, Nicole Kidman’s shortened hairdo and ritzy Manhattan abode, also filmed in warm ambers, purposefully evoke Mia Farrow’s troubled heroine in Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby, another film that depicts spoiled adults attempt to rationalize an otherwise irrational situation.

In fact, it’s precisely the way this material is handled and presented that elevates it to a higher level. The style and pacing evoke a mood that is rarely dared in bigger Hollywood star vehicles. The movie was directed by Jonathan Glazer, who also provided Sexy Beast (2000) with an identity and feel perfectly suited to its particular world, just as he has with Birth, though in nearly opposite ways. He’s a talented enough filmmaker to know that he doesn’t need to stamp a personal style on the material, like, say, Guy Ritchie; instead, he allows the material to dictate what the form will be. If nothing else, his first good call was to hire the great cameraman, Harris Savides, recently off shooting Gus Van Sant’s experimental films Gerry (2002—another underrated film!) and Elephant (2003). Here, he and Glazer impose the same style of long flowing takes to material that seems a little more conventional, and the result proves a fascinating mix.

Those languid shots that seem to float through time are put to use immediately. In the opening scene in Central Park, the camera follows our doomed jogger from behind and above, like an omniscient onlooker in one unbroken shot for two and a half minutes—just a guy jogging for what seems to be an eternity. He goes through a tunnel and comes out the other side (simulating the experience of death and rebirth), before finally cutting to another long take, this time static, as our jogger now runs toward the camera. He stops just short, collapses and dies in the tunnel with no dialogue, just the rising themes of Alexandre Desplat’s wonderful operatic score, an overture to the symphony that follows. The movie announces its style right out of the gate: the level of captivation achieved by Glazer and his team during these opening moments, for better or worse, directly correspond to the viewer’s level of enjoyment throughout the rest of the movie. In a later scene, after Kidman first convinces the young boy that she never wants to see him again, he physically collapses in a manner eerily similar to her husband’s death in the park. It’s the event that drives her to truly consider the boy is telling the truth — after all, a kid pulling a fast one on her would hardly have the capability to actually faint at the prospect of never seeing his true love again. Afterwards, she goes to the opera with Joseph and, in another unbroken take, Kidman enters late and finds a seat, the camera pushing in closer and closer until landing on a tight close-up of her face. Over the next minute and a half, the shot holds on her as she processes all of this information, showing subtle glimpses of emotion leading to a sort of acceptance. She decides it is, in fact, possible that this child truly possesses the soul of the love of her life, and if so, then shouldn’t she be with him? All the while, we hear the music swirling around her, the way her thoughts are buzzing through her mind. It’s a beautiful and sublime moment that benefits greatly from the lack of editing, highly effective use of music and from Nicole Kidman’s brave performance.

By the time the controversial scene in the bathtub takes place, we are on similar emotional territory as she is. It’s a complicated moment, but filmed with taste. First we see her in the tub. The door opens, closes. It’s Sean, the boy. He begins to take his clothes off one piece at a time. She watches this happening without saying a word of protest, the film always cutting between them, the two never appearing in the same shot. He steps into the tub and she asks, “What are you doing?” “I’m taking a bath with my wife,” the ten-year-old replies. And then they simply sit quietly, looking at each other…no contact, no dirty gestures or glances. Just implication. Yes, it’s a little creepy, but in the context of the movie with the kind of style and shape it’s taken, perfectly justified.

In the end, the filmmakers choose ambiguity over resolution, veering close to explaining itself in ways that would’ve undermined the tone of what came before it, but without ever tipping it’s hand by revealing a definitive answer to the is-he-or-isn’t-he-Sean question that hangs over the entire movie. Ultimately, it goes out on a bittersweet moment, while Joseph and Kidman are getting their wedding photos taken on the beach. Supposedly having put this whole debacle behind her, she has another debilitating emotional breakdown in her wedding dress, nearly running into the ocean and letting it swallow her. Joseph talks her down, but it’s clear that the residue left from her previous relationship, both with Sean the man and Sean the boy, is far from over.

That the movie grapples with these themes, without offering easy answers, is a tribute to the filmmakers’ collective willpower. Birth takes a premise that could be silly and digs deeply, but artfully, into what it means to try and justify who we love to ourselves, and why. That can be a rewarding, but challenging task, much like watching the film itself. In all, the very aesthetics that make the movie work might also be the same reasons it refused to catch the attention of the general movie-going public. It’s too slow to be enjoyed as mass entertainment, yet the space it allows gives the viewer time to ponder the questions being raised in real-time, and implicates the audience in Kidman’s complicated emotional dilemma. Afterwards, the questions raised by the film remain food for thought, inviting the viewer to ponder what one might do in a similar situation. To that end, it’s completely worth a look, if only to witness one of the strangest star-vehicles to come out in years. –Jeremy Mather

Director: Jonathan Glazer
Writers: Jean-Claude Carrière & Milo Addica