no star rating is applicable

Unrated
Copyright 1991
DVD Released in 2001 by World Artists Home Video
Written, Produced, Cinematography by, and Directed by E. Elias Merhige(as Edmund Merhige)
Staring Brian Salzburg, Donna Dempsy, and Stephen Charles Barry

PREPARE YOURSELF

Begotten is a film that abandons the typical movie format. No dialogue is used. The footage is shaky, blurred, grainy, and in black and white. There isn’t even a discernable plot. It’s just 71 minutes of freaky, weirded-out, sometimes incredible images. It is in this spirit that I am abandoning my typical review format. Gone are the section titles of “Synopsis,” “My Thoughts,” and “DVD Stuff.” Gone is the star rating. Don’t worry. Unlike the plot (did I say plot?) in Begotten, all will be explained in the review.

WATCH THE SCREEN AND LOSE YOUR MIND

Begotten starts off with some weird Leatherface-looking guy (listed in the credits as “God Killing Himself”) rocking in a chair while slicing his stomach up with a straight razor. Blood and guts flow in this scene, which can only be described as German Expressionism meets Herchell Gordon Lewis meets David Lynch. After God has finished killing himself, a sheet next to him starts to move. Out from under the sheet comes a woman in a 19th century looking masque ball gown, complete with the requisite Lone Ranger masque. She walks around until she sees a phallic shape in the shadows. Overcome with lust (or so I guessed) she begins stroking the phallus. Cut to a close up of her belly and BOOM!!!! We have the money shot!

But it’s not over. Next she starts rubbing the semen from her belly into her nether-regions. Or so it looks. The way this film is lit, you can’t distinguish pubic hair from moss. In the next scene she’s become large with child. The rest of the movie is images of her child (a full grown naked man who spends most of the movie twitching) getting tortured by these freaky looking monks.

WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!?!?!? AND HOW LONG WAS IT?!?!?!

Roger Ebert has a rule that states, “A movie will only get a rating of zero stars if it is morally reprehensible or if a star rating just does not apply.” In the case of Begotten, a star rating definitely does not apply.

In my opinion, this is not really a movie. It is a series of moving images meant to bring forth some kind of emotional reaction from the viewer. For me, the reaction was, “What the hell is going on here?” The surrealism makes the viewing a true experience. Some of the images are starkly brutal, which I like. The film succeeds as an art project, but ultimately fails as a movie.

In fact, I’d be willing to bet that this is a student film. For some reason, film school students end up producing the most fucked-up movies imaginable. It's as if the class syllabus reads, “FINAL PROJECT: Take some acid, mushrooms, or peyote. Write down what you see. Put it to film. Make sure it is at least seventy minutes long.”

That brings up another Roger Ebert-ism. The Buddha of movie reviews (Buddha as in girth, not in wisdom) says that the first sign of a bad movie is when you begin to look at your watch. At about the fifty-minute mark of Begotten, I turned my DVD counter display on to see how much of the movie was left. Add that to the fact that the movie is only seventy-one minutes long and your talking boredom. The images are incredible to behold, but you can only watch a bunch of monks torture a twitching, naked man for so long. If Merhige had shaved about 30 minutes off of the movie, it would have worked much better.

ART OR PRETENSION or "We Interrupt This Review For an Editorial on Art Films"

It should be noted that I have nothing against so-called “art movies.” I flat out LOVED David Lynch’s Eraserhead. In Eraserhead, however, you get a slight explanation of what is going on. Man and woman have a mutant baby and are trying to deal with it. Now, here’s the psychedelic freak-out. Begotten skips the explanation and goes right to the psychedelic freak-out. The only explanation you get is in the closing credits when you find out the three characters are God Killing Himself, Mother Earth, and Son of Earth-Flesh on Bone. Yep, that explains a lot.

This movie has gotten some decent reviews, many of which are quoted in the trailer (my favorite being, “a metaphysical splatter film”). I have to wonder if some of these reviewers were almost afraid to be negative about this movie. Art film fans and art film makers seem to have an air of pretension about them that says, “I’m an intellectual and if you don’t understand my art then you are not an intellectual.” It is very possible that reviewers might be afraid to give bad reviews to art films out of the fear of being labeled “un-intellectual.” I am here to say that “unintelligible” doesn’t always equal “intellectual."

In the Production Notes of the film, Merhige describes Begotten as, (and this is not a direct quote) “The story of a woman and her child traveling and getting met by other travelers. Scenes of violence erupt. This is a film that takes place in a time before language, using images to get its point across.” Or, something like that. Anyway, what he says may be true. But for all I know, he could have just put some bizarre images together, and then studied it and decided, “Okay, this is what I’ll say it’s about.”

And that is the crux of art films. They very well could be masterpieces created by intellectuals whose thought processes are on a different plane from the rest of us. On the other hand, they could be made by pretentious fucks who wish to make people believe that they are intellectuals. The third option is that they are made by people who THINK they are intellectuals, when in actuality, they are just insane. No matter what the case is, I refuse to pretend that I think something is genius just because it is hard to understand.

Now, on with the review.

But first . . .

MOVIE REVIEWERS AND HYPOCRISY

I’m going to wail on the reviewers. This movie features a guy cutting his guts out, masturbation, ejaculation, and bloody torture. If this had been filmed in real-time color with a plot, most reviewers would call it “sleaze” or “porn.” Since it was filmed in black and white with slo-mo and fast-mo shots, since the picture is grainy, and since the plot is practically non-existent, it is hailed as “art,” “genius,” or an “assault on the senses.” I have nothing more to say on that. You readers can make up your own minds.

WOULD YOU LIKE EXTRAS WITH THAT?

As for extras, the DVD is a little light. We get a trailer loaded with review blurbs. We get production notes on the film, leading me to believe that Merhige’s dedication to this movie made up for its incoherency. The weird lighting and textures of the picture were put together frame by frame, taking as much as 10 hours to get the desired look for one minute of film. Finally, the film is divided into 57 chapters with odd titles that are supposed to explain what’s going on. Not that they succeed.

AND THE POINT IS . . .

Despite the overwhelming negativity of this review, I must point out that I enjoyed the images in the film. They were beautifully shot, and definitely shocking to behold. However, after the birth of the Son of Earth, the movie plodded too much. As a short subject, Begotten would have worked out perfectly. But at seventy minutes, it feels a little bloated. Bluntly put, it is an exercise in technique with very little story. It is worth renting just to view the amazing imagery, but I wouldn’t put down good money on a purchase.

As a nice bit of closing trivia, E. Elias Merhige later went on to make Shadow of the Vampire, a masterpiece starring John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe. I just have to wonder if either of those actors saw Begotten before they signed on.

BEST LINE

There is no dialogue. Hence, no best line.

To order or learn more about this movie, visit World Artists Video.
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