Pretty Good

Memorable, crazy movie

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

A Masterpiece!

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.

As a longtime lover of surrealist and experimental cinema, "Begotten" has remained on my radar for a while now. I've heard many varying perspectives on this polarizing film, and I did not finally decide to watch it until today, and all I can say is: .This is not a normal film by any means. Instead, it's really a piece of visual art, and I don't say this to sound like a hipster who's intellectually far more superior than the fools who surround me, I say it because that's really what it is. Technically, it is definitely a movie, but its classification cannot end there. It's too unconventional to not be given some sort of heavy artistic label. Of course, just because something is heavily "artistic" does not mean that it's good by any means, and maybe this isn't really good, but I definitely enjoyed it overall.There's definitely quite a lot of bad things about this film. First of all, some sections are way too slow and this painstaking slowness made me blackout several times while I as watching it, allowing my mind to wander freely and think about totally unrelated things. However, the sections in which it does hold your attention are really quite spectacular and rank with the likes of great surrealist films like "L'age d'Or" and, my all time favorite movie, "Eraserhead". However, it misses some of the key elements those films had that made them so entertaining-for example: humor! I feel as if humor is an essential part of surrealist cinema. Sure, some surreal films do perfectly fine without it, but those are few and far between (I mean, "Antichrist" is objectively a perfectly crafted film and there is literally no reason to alter it in my opinion). Nearly everything David Lynch has ever worked on has at least a few laugh out loud moments, and Bunuel was once notorious for his hilarious mockeries of religion, the bourgeois, and society in general. Although I must admit that I can't really find a spot in "Begotten" in which humor would be appropriate...Other problems that I had with the film dealt with its rather pretentious use of religious imagery. I get that the entire film is about the death and rebirth of gods, but you can tell this story without the common religious symbols that are used in tons of other avant garde art pieces! It's stale territory and can only be properly pulled off by a genuinely masterful filmmaker. And while the man behind this work certainly has the potential to be such, he has yet to fully prove said potential. I may sound like I'm picking on this film quite a bit, so I'll lay out some of the reasons I gave this oddity such a high rating: -the visuals are pretty damn beautiful despite their gritty feel, and whenever they aren't beautiful it's due to some of the film's intentionally disturbing imagery -in terms of a horror film, "Begotten" may be unusual but it's still extremely effective, filled with the creepiest visuals imaginable and an atmosphere so dark and strange that it almost flawlessly replicates the weirdest of my nightmares. -it's a successfully otherworldly experience, and that's one of the best and most important things I think that film can do -the scenes that are intriguing are almost endlessly watchable and have gained an impressively iconic status among horror fans in the modern day.Thanks to these several key qualities I can enthusiastically recommend "Begotten" to bug fans of artistic, surreal, scary, and disturbing cinema. I cannot guarantee that you will enjoy it, but it's worth watching at least once as a unique and unsettling curio and a mild modern classic of the avant garde.

In a lot of reviews you will likely hear people say this film peaked in the first ten minutes or so. I don't disagree. The reason I believe this is because the imagery is the clearest during those first initial minutes. Begotten was filmed in very grainy/ blurry way that for the majority of its length it is very hard to tell what you are looking at exactly. I'm not going to lie, the movie is basically moving blurry blotches of black and white. I enjoyed the parts when my brain was able to discern anything remotely recognizable. Those images were no doubt very haunting but it wasn't enough for me at first. I saw something wrong with the whole thing. I was dissatisfied because I had expected to be relentlessly disturbed the entire time. Then it occurred to me hours after viewing that maybe I was missing the point. Watching Begotten, for me, was like stumbling in the dark, the only flashes of light you encounter reveal dreadful things that make you long for darkness again. Few movies can inspire that kind of dread and although the film was fairly boring overall there is definitely something to be said for that.

Description: an 80min abstract Rorschach version of the Judeo-Christian creation story.The Good: If you are not a fan of abstract/coffee-house films, then there will probably be nothing in this film that you will like. There is no dialog and in fact, not even color as all of the images are comprised solely of pure black and pure white with no half-tones. The story is cryptic and hard to follow or understand (for most viewers) but if you like the bizarre and abstract then you will probably love this film. To be sure, there are certainly elements of horror here: scenes that are so graphic in nature that they are hard to watch and impossible to forget, but a suspenseful/slasher film it is not. Though there is no dialog, the sound effects are unsettling, creepy, and at times, completely unnerving. Combined with the stark contrast and almost alien imagery, the soundtrack helps to evoke a completely surreal and horrifying world. For all of the truly gruesome and graphic images that abound in the realm of cinema horror, no other film as made this reviewer as uncomfortable, tense, and truly horrified as Elias Merhige's Begotten. Gaspar Noe's Irreversible came close for a few minutes during the infamous rape scene, but that is only a fraction of the freaked-out-edness to be experienced in this film.The Bad: Begotten is surreal and somewhat abstract. The characters are more akin to Jungian archetypes than they are stock character types, which makes this a hard to follow/understand film. However, these elements give the viewer an interpretive freedom and participation level that is rarely, if ever, found in mainstream films. You may not come away with the same story the filmmaker was telling, but the one you glean will be more personal and meaningful.The Ugly: The imagery is borderline abstract at times due to the phenomenal amount of processing that went into this film (follow the above Wikipedia link for more details on that), but it is up to each viewer to truly determine the value of this quality. For myself, I have nothing negative to remark on concerning the style, acting, video or audio quality of this film.Old School: Truly old school fans of horror will probably dig this one, and by truly old school I mean those people who own a copy of The Student of Prague, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, or Murnau's Nosferatu. You know who you are. Also, fans of Eraserhead will most likely enjoy it as well.New Blood: Younger audiences who enjoy MTV-style editing and seeing Paris Hilton in horror films, will probably hate this one. If you don't know who Max Schreck is, then I'm talking about you. Go back to the mall and forget you ever heard about this movie.To See or Not to See? Rent, buy, pirate or con? Good luck finding this one anywhere. I have never seen it on eBay, and only once at Amazon - for over one hundred dollars (US). I know of one video store in Atlanta that rents it. So however you can watch this film, by all means do so.