Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10869 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-05-02
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 100 minutes

Synopsis
Nicole Kidman teams up with director Jonathan Glazer (SEXY BEAST) to deliver some sensitive subject matter in BIRTH. Kidman stars as Anna, a wealthy widower preparing to remarry 10 years after the sad, premature death of her husband. She inhabits a vast apartment in New York City, which is owned by her protective mother, Eleanor (Lauren Bacall), who quickly gathers Anna under her protective wing whenever trouble comes calling. Anna's fiance Joseph (Danny Huston) also resides in the austere apartment, where a party is thrown to celebrate the impending wedlock of the happy couple. An unwelcome visitor in the shape of 10-year-old Sean (Cameron Bright) crashes the festivities, cornering Anna and claiming to be her departed husband. After a derisory reaction from Anna, events take a strange twist when Sean continues to hound the widower, revealing facts that only her late husband could possibly know. Emotions pour out of Anna, with Kidman delivering an exemplary performance as she manages to simultaneously convey grief, confusion, and the overwhelming feeling of loss that Anna had all but buried. Becoming ever more convinced of Sean's authenticity, Anna risks losing everything as Joseph and Eleanor attempt to debunk the veracity of the 10-year-old's claims, but fight a losing battle as Anna's old feelings reawaken and blossom into a palpable flourish of love and desire. Director Glazer packs a haunting visual punch throughout BIRTH, drawing on the stunning work of cinematographer Harris Savides to present a bleak, almost monochromatic vision of New York. The script from longtime Bunuel collaborator Jean-Claude Carriere and co-writer Milo Addica handles what could have been a controversial topic with taste and dignity, but the movie really belongs to Kidman, who once again proves her acting chops with a stimulating performance.

Customer Reviews

Harshly underrated
Birth died a death (pardon the pun) before it was even released due to unwelcome and hysterical publicity at its suggestion of sexual relations between a grown woman and a ten-year-old boy. Something of a flop, I watched it without any specific expectations or prejudices about its premise and was pleasantly surprised. As often with more elegaic, slow-moving films, you get a raft of irate reviewers on Amazon screaming about how bored they were as if they have been personally affonted. Maybe they were expecting something from Nicole Kidman on the level of Bewitched or The Stepford Wives? This is not conventional Hollywood - but more (perhaps self-consciously) European in style, darkly symbolic in the mold of Lucile Hadzihalilovic's Innocence - with shades of David Lynch and Luis Bunuel.

Richly atmospheric, with an uncanny performance by Cameron Bright as the possible reincarnation of Nicole Kidman's dead husband, it is a chilling examination of loss and grief. Although it operates on one level as a supernatural thriller, there are more subtle currents at work here that less imaginative filmgoers like to dismiss as boring or pretentious. Allow yourself to be pulled into the sombre mood, however, and stop expecting things 'To Happen', and you might be rewarded with something deeper and more nuanced. If you don't have much of an attention span or a capacity to enjoy films which aren't supposed to be treated as literal, then you should avoid this. 'Birth' has its faults, but it doesn't deserve the vitriolic abuse it has received here.

Arty or Disturbing?
After hearing so many mixed opinions about this film as both arty and disturbing, I was intrigued to see how the story would unfold.

Kidman plays a woman obsessed with the momory of her dead husband, who encounters a 10 year old boy, claiming to be the reincarnation of her husband. The boy pursues her and very convincingly convinces her that he is her husband and she begins to fall in love all over again......mmmm...this did disturb me slightly.

However, I felt the film was sensitively done and the accompanying music was beautifully selected.

If you enjoy 'arty' films, you'll appreciate this one, although the ending was a bit disappointing

This is My First Review - By Me, only Me!
Criticised last year in the U.S because of its sensitive nature, Birth is a tender, intense and sometimes gripping drama from director Jonathon Glazer.It tells the story of anna(kidman) who, ten years after her husbands death, is about to remarry (huston) but has a chance meeting with a ten year old boy who claims is her husband re-incarnate-at first anna shrugs off the statement as proposterous , but as the woman and boy become close, anna starts to doubt herself and her own beliefs. Birth is a subtle and convincing tale of a woman still grieving after 10 years and the film itself has some moments that perfectly capture the fragility of human emotion-superbly performed by the three leads and supporting cast of anne heche and lauren bacall,with an inspired score by alexandre desplat and truly gorgeous visuals filmed in and around new york, Birth is a genuinely engaging and beautiful film entirely un-deserved of any claims of 'in-decent material' as one american journalist said.