Begotten (1991)
Directed by E. Elias Merhige
Begotten is the creation myth brought to life, the story of no less than the violent death of God and the (re)birth of nature on a barren earth.
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What critics compared Begotten to
Which is unfortunate, as Pawel Pawlikowski's first film, "Last Resort," a Kafkaesque tale of a Russian mother and son trapped immigration limbo, was truly remarkable.
Under the unadorned but intensely atmospheric direction of Pawel Pawlikowski (whose similarly visceral "Last Resort" was released in 2001), the inexperienced young actresses give such unaffected performances that the film develops a voyeuristic quality as the girls' relationship takes on the momentum of a runaway train.
In the reflective moments between their giddy bike rides and drunken strolls, they seem happy that they found each other, but there's more at work here, and it's revealed when director Pawel Pawlikowski (Last Resort) slowly, deliberately pulls back to find the bitterness waiting beneath the sunny title.
As his previous feature, 2001's memorable "Last Resort," demonstrated, Pawlikowski is a second-skin filmmaker, someone whose sensitivity to people enables him to truly get inside his characters' private worlds, to know them better than they sometimes know themselves.
Pawel Pawlikowski’s previous film was the critically acclaimed drama Last Resort (which also starred Paddy Considine), back in 2000.
Mona (newcomer Nathalie Press, resembling Toni Collette crossed with Sissy Spacek) takes her motorless scooter out into the Yorkshire countryside to get away from her born again brother Phil (Paddy Considine, "Cinderella Man," "Last Resort"), who's turning their pub into a revival meeting.
Lynch certainly remains a factor throughout, but Men goes through a number of changes during its runtime — from the grounded story of a woman's grief and guilt, to an increasingly terrorized siege drama a la Straw Dogs , and finally into the shocking realm of E. Elias Merhige's Begotten and Shinya Tsukamoto's Tetsuo: The Iron Man .
This is a punishing work for viewers looking for something even more antagonistically surreal than Eraserhead or Jodorowsky.
"Wants so badly to be the next "Eraserhead" you can taste it."