Begotten

Don't watch this film while, or soon after, eating.

Having said that, Begotten will stick with you for the rest of your life, like it or not. Based on the nihilistic philosophy that life is nothing more than man spasming above ground (to paraphrase the title sequence/introduction), this will more than likely contain the most intense and grisly imagery you'll ever see in a film.

There is no dialogue, only image after image describing the cycle of life. The film's combination of stark black and white photography compounded with some truly creepy background sounds work to drive home the maker's message.

The movie begins with God (portrayed as a bandaged and obviously insane man) slicing open his torso with a straight razor and subsequently dying in his own filth. After his death, Mother Nature emerges from his corpse to impregnate herself with his blood and semen and gives birth to Man, represented by a maggot of a human convulsing on the earth.

The landscape is a barren waste, populated by hulking shrouded humanoids who eventually happen upon Mother Nature and Man. After a slew of violent scenes depicting the rape of Nature and destruction of Man, these humanoids proceed to pound the remains of the corpses back into the ground, and the cycle of life begins anew.

I actually rented this from Blockbuster one night, based on the cover art and hype content, but this is definitely not a Blockbuster-type film. Don't expect narrative, dialogue or any pulled punches. This is intense imagery based on a dark subject.

I give this movie some high marks for the filmwork and audio, but I don't think I'll be watching it too often, if again. I like my movies dark and unique, but this one is exponentially more than I expected.

I usually love bizarre, experimental, non-linear films. Not this time. This is a boring one, filled with very dull, repetitive images. Nothing goes on for on and on and on, and many times, due to the lighting effects, the editing, the grainy out-of-focus picture, and the blending of white with light and black with dark, you wonder if there is any image at all on the screen or if you are getting a bad reception. Oh yeah, and there are constant shots of the sun going up, and down, and up, and down... When the movie ended, my reaction was not of horror, or repulsion, or awe, but of amazement, as I wondered "THAT was IT?".

The reason why people think that this crap being passed great art is the work of a genius is the presentation of the credits. The guy that looked like Leatherface who was repeatedly cutting what is supposed to be an intestine is credited as God, and other characters as Mother Nature and etc. Why, how easy to create art! Now we can credit Elizabeth Berkeley's character in "Showgirls" as "God stripping several times and constantly acting stupidly in Las Vegas with Elvis look-alikes and screwing Kyle MacLaughlan" and officially declare it a work of art!...

When you make a film like Begotten you know it will divide people - one man's trash is another man's art. I don't think Begotten is trash and I'm not sure if it's art but I do know that it haunted me long after I saw it.

This is completely unlike any film you'll ever see. The graininess of it and the fact that you can't always make out what's going on just ups the creep out factor. It's like watching a vague memory or a disjointed nightmare play out on film.

On the downside, at only 68 minutes, it's still way too long. Each scene starts with promise but drags on and on and on...

I admire the audacity of the filmmaker and this is certainly a one of a kind work but ultimately Begotten is flawed by it's own self indulgence.

Definitely one of the most bizarre pieces of moviemaking you will ever see. You need to sit through "Eraserhead," "Tetsuo:The Iron Man," and the like to have at least some preparation for this one. Not that I am about to claim that I understand what the film's intentions are. If it wasn't for the brief summary on the tape's cover, then I would be completely at loss, and even that wasn't really much help. Then again, as some people below have argued, it just may be some self-indulging mumbo-jumbo, so there might not be any need to stress over the meaning of it. In any case, because people's opinions on this movie are completely bipolar, I simply concluded that it can be looked at as, so to say, "raw matter" or "raw substance" (whichever you prefer), and one should just make out of it what he can, using his/her own perspective, experiences, etc. In other words, it's all very subjective. Personally, I can't say that I got something intellectually fulfilling out of it. I enjoyed the bleakness and weirdness of it all, though we all know how wearisome these things can become. So basically, give it a try if you are into all things out of this world, but you should probably keep you expectations reserved.

Begotten is one of those movies that's aimed at a very specific audience. It's not for people who are easily offended, or even mildly so. It's not for people who prefer easy-to-follow plots or who prefer clear, crisp cinematography. It's really for people who relish weird movies, particularly ones that Mean Something, the better to analyze endlessly. Me, I don't care so much for the over-analyzing bit, but I do like me some weirdness. And boy, does Begotten get weird. And gory.

Reasons you might not like this movie, reader: 1) It's in black and white. (I know!) 2) It has no dialogue. 3) It looks like it was shot on Super 8mm film, transferred to Betamax, copied over to cave drawings, and then digitally recorded. What I mean to say is that grainy is a word that applies here. It's kind of like the old days, when one might get a partial signal for a TV channel to which one had not subscribed. Except at no point is the signal clear in Begotten. Where was I? Oh, yeah. 4) Its religious undertones are overtones, and they're not exactly reverential. 5) There's plenty of blood and other fluids.

Now those of you who, according to the above paragraph, not like this movie should stop reading now. Are they gone? Okay, rest of you. Here's the basic plot. There are no twists – the appeal is visual, believe it or not – because there's almost no story. It begins with God killing himself through disembowelment, which somehow causes Mother Earth to be born, and then a few minutes later she gives birth to a fully formed Son of God, who's really nothing more than a shaking skeleton with some skin on him, and then they're beset by faceless cannibals, and then things get weird.

If you do watch Begotten, be sure to cleanse yourself with some wholesome Yo Gabba Gabba afterward.