Window Water Baby Moving

Window Water Baby Moving (1962)

**** (out of 4)

I'm not quite sure where the line is drawn when it comes to art and a simple home movie but this film is certainly the best of both. Director Brakhage made this eleven-minute film dealing with the birth of his first child. The mixture of something beautiful like art and something ugly like a home movie is rather interesting for the story as there's a lot of ugliness that goes along with childbirth but at the same time there's also something beautiful about it and this film perfectly captures both. Nothing during the birth sequence is kept to the imagination as the director gets the camera very close to where all the action is going on and he doesn't shy away from showing anything. It's rather amazing that his wife was such a good sport because there had to be times where he was in the way of the birth just to get certain shots. The film shows a lot of this ugly, bloody mess but it's also done very beautifully. The birth shots and edited with shots of Brakhage and his wife loving on one another and the way this editing is done really captures the love and affection the director must have been feeling.

You ever see that cliché happening, if not in TV or movies then in real life, of the husband documenting every single excruciatingly painful but miraculous happening that is birth? Apparently, according to Stan Brakhage on the DVD this film is on, this trend was at least in part inspired by his original efforts. Shot on a minimal budget (save for what it must've cost to have a birth in the Brakhage household as opposed to the hospital), this film IS the difference between a simple 'home movie' and something close to the most personal art possible. Documentary film-making has always been about a subject that compels the filmmaker enough to get hours and hours of footage down. That here Brakhage, who often does montage work of paintings and the like, is focusing his subject matter on his wife, and his child just itching to get out, in all graphic detail, is astounding. For the 60's, when this was first released, it was probably a lot more shocking than now.

Not to say that the film isn't shocking, but it is on a different level than what you might see on one of those 'birth' shows on one of the Discovery channels. The way certain things are presented in the film are surprising, and (if you're a guy like me) definitely unnerving. But Brakhage somehow makes his film almost beautiful in a way by cutting the film's subject matter in half, so to speak. The first half is just the mother of his child, in a bathtub, feeling the baby kicking, et all. It's really just a great montage of the woman as a whole, nothing unseen, with the belly getting the most screen-time aside from the mother's face and genitals. Then comes the second part, the birth. Basically, if you still wonder how it works, in near unflinching detail, watch the film. That it is presented in such a grainy 16mm kind of filming, and still using the intense, mad montage of Brakhage's two cameras on her (I think it was two, one more close to the 'action' than the other).

And when it ends, it is, like all (practically) successful births, a miracle in and of itself. So much happens within these 13 minutes of film than, in a way, it feels longer. I loved how it dealt with its subject matter, which could be very tricky, and messy (the latter of which is very true), and was still a wonder for the eyes. It lacks music, which is sort of a pro and a con for me- you could do with some music, make it even more home movie-like. As it is, Brakhage has one of his most notorious- and possibly best- works here, and maybe the only film that makes that bridge between a health class and film class in school.

It took me nearly ten years to muster up the guts to actually sit through an entire viewing of Stan Brakhage's WINDOW WATER BABY MOVING.......... and my courage has been completely rewarded by it! Even in this time, when watching live births on TV is commonplace, Brakhage's film (then ground-breaking for 1959) on the birth of his first child takes that "miracle" of life to an exultant place beyond the merely visual or educational, and gives the viewer the truth of both love and art.

Warm skin-tones, loving hands on his pregnant wife Jane's stomach, water washing over expectant skin, eyes, smiles, and the clearly visible movement of a child in the womb through the protruding abdomen eventually give way to extremely graphic, though emotionally and viscerally stunning shots of a child being born. All the pain, commitment, necessity, care and truth (the WHOLE truth!!!) involved in the before, during and after stages of becoming a part of this world are fully documented by Brakhage the filmmaker and father. The compositioning, colours, movements, angles, sequencing and revelations ultimately forming an incredible visual poem on and about the love of a man and a woman, and the child they have created together. Made all the more powerful and impacting by the complete lack of sound; thereby letting the eye do the "reading".

I had never seen anything so breathtaking, eye-opening, informative, and completely uncensored, yet so fraught with beauty before I saw this film tonight. When Brakhage grasps his head and smiles so wonderously at the end I couldn't help but smile back for him. One creation spawning another, shared with us all.

10/10. A true miracle.

While many women cringe at the thought of child birth and would never want to go through it, other women love children and are more than delighted to deliver a baby. I am a male, so I don't really have a true opinion, but I would really like to have a child someday. This film is essentially the birth of experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage's first child. We witness his daughter being born without the sugarcoating or hiding the act. We see the birth in all of its glory. Many viewers will be nauseated with the sight, but others will be honored. This film is amazing because we see life actually being given and it is amazing. The human body is very complex, and the birthing process doesn't hide this fact. This is a film that people will watch for the ending. The ending makes the whole process worth it as the child turns out beautiful and We as viewers are treated to a loving sight of the child living and very healthy looking. This is the sweet side of Stan Brakhage. Usually his films involve the viewers in the difficulty of trying to figure out what he is trying to say, but this film is almost like a reward to the viewer. Children are beautiful and it is strange to realize that in twenty years, they will be running the country.

(I watched this film as part of the DVD short film collection of Stan Brakhage entitled, BY BRAKHAGE: AN ANTHOLOGY.)

I saw this short a few days ago at the Rotterdam Film Course for the International Rotterdam Film Festival and it blew me away. I had read some information about this short and wasn't that impressed, after all there are loads of programmes nowadays on TV that handle this subject as entertainment fodder.

What I did not know up front was the fact that Stan Brakhage never uses sound. That's probably where the power lies. The pictures were so incredibly strong and vibrant because of lighting, color and the sheer graphic visions Brakhage presents to the viewers that sound would have been distracting to say the least.

The pictures are not for the easily spooked persons or women who are thinking about having a baby. This is a straightforward account of child birth with all the gore, blood and beauty that accompanies it. It opened my eyes, 'cause I had never seen anything like it before in my life, and it is after all the most natural happening in the world.

After 13 minutes you will be left breathless.

10/10