"Birth" (2004) - Movie Review

You can truly understand the meaning of “getting on one’s nerves” when seeing young Sean (Cameron Bright) and Anna (Nicole Kidman) irritate on the ridiculousness of the situation. But near the end something happens and we understand both of them nevertheless leaving the film with flaws. One being the script conveniently brushing away the intervention from other characters paving for the emotional deliverance tangled with absurdity.

A voice jokes the possibility of life after death and then we see a man running ultimately collapsing in a tunnel situated in the park. Ten years later we meet Joseph (Danny Huston) and Anna celebrating their engagement. A young boy is in the lobby of the building and begins to follows a lady (Anne Heche) walking tensely and burying something in the bushes. In the midst of Anna’s birthday party he comes uninvited and declares that he is Sean, Anna’s dead husband. He goes one step further in advising her not to marry Joesph.

Anna being an adult at least for that time laughs away the foolishness of this boy’s approach. He then shows up again and this time she shoos him. It only comes back to haunt her later consistently which triggers the implausibility of strange things happening one after another. I was dismayed by the idiocy and stupidity of Anna but a loved one reincarnating is the hope and comfort the person in grief crave for. Death is insurmountable pain of driving the senses to search for something to feel and have some hope again on something. Anna beginning to believe on the boy is unbelievable even in remote terms of emotional scale but we can associate due to how Kidman handles it.

The part which annoys the most is the zilch effort from the others to shake her up and possibly asks this question to the boy claiming to be her husband. “What in the hell he needs now?” I mean hypothetically being the case as true, what is the ultimate purpose of interrupting the devastated Anna’s prosperous life ahead? It sounds cruel to pose that question and Jonathan Glazer approaches this subject of unexplainable situation of complete traumatic results.

If this film has something immaculate, that would be Nicole Kidman. There is a five minute shot of her in a concert hall wondering on the possibility, pain and befuddlement. After failing to convince Sean of stopping to bother her, he collapses which shakes her. In those close up shots along with appreciation for her acting, it was so perfect that it had me almost convinced of the character’s behaviour in later parts of the film. Of course I was not convinced completely. The feelings she is overwhelmed are truly and understandably real and we empathize of it in not alone surrendering to those emotions but also breaking Joseph’s heart. But her pursuing that hope of abyss doubts her character and the script.

There is no getting over a loss of a loved one. It tones down in time being and the life of the mourning becomes busy which gets on with the future nevertheless having the burden cornered. It pricks and as the time goes by recedes as an effortless smile of missing them. I have not lost some one whom I loved the dearest and hence I can only imagine. The day will come and beyond these rational lines of putting forth openly, it is going to tear me apart and the dealing of it would be painful. I was able to picture that once you see the character of Kidman pushing the envelope. Despite the impulsive emotions, the time she has come along and her being an adult questions those actions forgetting not alone the moment of reality but about the people surrounding the young boy.

“Birth” annoyed me on the continuing obstinate craziness Anna and Sean exhibit. Sean is a boy and that becomes in favour of the character. Anna in deep sorrow of lost disappears in the tears (and I mean it in negative way) in spite of a performance so close in pulling it off by Kidman. The music, ambience and those gloomy house of silent people while adds the beauty of the film sucks the possibility from the other through those family spectators. I was beginning to hate the film when it surfaced its intent of deep love yearning for immortality, reincarnation and a false hope.