Widely disparaged by reviewers on its release 20 years ago (it rates just 39% on the aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes) and a box office failure, Birth is a sorely misunderstood film, and more than that, a surrealist masterpiece. Nicole Kidman plays a young Manhattan widow who is bemused, angered, appalled, and finally captivated and enraptured by the strange courtship of a ten-year-old boy (Vancouver’s Cameron Bright) who claims to be Sean, her late husband.
It is an unsettling film, no doubt, and a completely unexpected about-face for Glazer after Sexy Beast. The key may be his screenwriting partner Jean-Claude Carriere, who collaborated with Luis Bunuel on his key films in the 1960s and 70s. For all its teasing ambiguities, this isn’t a speculation about reincarnation so much as a surreal fairy tale probing amour fou. Love is a spine-tingling enchantment, and it’s a curse, more slippery and dangerous than we care to acknowledge. Nicole Kidman gives the performance of her life here, and don’t overlook the extraordinary contributions of DP Harris Savides (Elephant; Zodiac) and composer Alexandre Desplat (The Grand Budapest Hotel).
Screening in 35mm
Without Ms. Kidman’s brilliantly nuanced performance, Birth might feel arch, chilly and a little sadistic, but she gives herself so completely to the role that the film becomes both spellbinding and heartbreaking, a delicate chamber piece with the large, troubled heart of an opera.
AO Scott, New York Times
Mysterious and haunting… you won’t believe anyone got away with making a film like this.
David Thomson, The Guardian
Jonathan Glazer
Nicole Kidman, Danny Huston, Cameron Bright, Lauren Bacall, Anne Heche
USA
2004
English
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Screenwriter
Jean-Claude Carrière, Milo Addica, Jonathan Glazer
Cinematography
Claus Wehlisch, Harris Savides
Editor
Sam Sneade, Claus Wehlisch
Production Design
Kevin Thompson
Art Director
Jonathan Arkin
Also Playing
Samia
Despite growing up in Mogadishu, Somalia, during the civil war, Samia Yusuf Omar persists in her dream of becoming an Olympic athlete and competes in Beijing, 2008 -- with London, 2012 next on her agenda. Based on a true story.
Sudan, Remember Us
A portrait of young artists and activists, Meddeb's doc charts events in Khartoum between 2019 -- in the immediate wake of the revolution that deposed dictator Omar al-Bashir -- and the mood four years later, when the country has been torn apart by civil war.
Margaret
Seventeen-year-old Lisa is rocked with guilt after a woman is killed in a traffic accident. But that’s only one thread in a teeming social tapestry this intense, passionate teen must negotiate as she comes of age in a time of contradiction and confusion.
E.1027 Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea
In this elegant non fiction film, actors play Irish designer Eileen Gray, her lover, the architect Jean Badovici, and modernist superstar Le Corbusier, who would become obsessed with the house on the Cote d'Azur that Eileen designed.