Birth

Dead alive: Birth is a beautiful meditation on grief

By Jeannette Catsoulis

After the sunny, snappy debut of 2000's Sexy Beast, director Jonathan Glazer's Birth is quite a shock. Glacially paced and gorgeously photographed (by Elephant's Harris Savides) in wintry blues and grays, this moody, melancholy film--described as "a metaphysical romance"--is one of the bravest sophomore efforts I've ever seen.

Ten years after the death of her husband, Sean, Anna (Nicole Kidman) has finally agreed to marry Joseph (Danny Huston). As their engagement party gets under way, a solemn young boy (Godsend's Cameron Bright) hangs around the entrance to their building, finally following Clara (Anne Heche), one of the guests, as she mysteriously buries a parcel in Central Park. Soon after, at a birthday party for Anna's mother (a salty Lauren Bacall), the boy reappears. "I want her," he announces, pointing at Anna. "I'm Sean."

A stately, ominous work defined by pockets of absolute stillness, Birth is best surrendered to than actively engaged. As Anna moves from suspicion through hope to conviction, the film prowls the Upper East Side apartments of her family and friends, their restrained incredulity in sharp contrast to the agony of the boy's working-class mother (Cara Seymour). "I'm not your boy anymore," he tells her, refusing to yield to threat or therapy. But Clara also seems to have a mysterious connection to the interloper--perhaps his intimate knowledge of Anna has another explanation.

Ultimately, Birth is less about reincarnation than the tenacity of grief and unyielding heartache. Using little but Kidman's amazing face to anchor the camera, Glazer constructs scenes of haunting pain--her emotional breakdown during an orchestral concert is filmed in a single, wordless, three-minute take. And a bathtub conversation between Anna and the boy, both of whom are naked, positions us so delicately between fascination and repulsion that I wasn't aware I had stopped breathing. Birth is an indefinable experience; but if you make it to the final, devastating moments, I guarantee you'll never forget them.