The restored Begotten (1990) hits theaters October 2

This review goes back to 2010 when Unseen Films just started. BEGOTTEN was one of the first films ever reviewed. With it getting a restored edition here is my review from almost two decades ago.

This is the film that caused of a break between the local art house, myself and my friend Lou. We were not there constantly, but we did go frequently, Lou more than me, to the extent that he had a membership, but the attitude they had toward this film really set us off and the visits to the theater became almost non existent.

The argument, which occurred over several weeks, always came as they made a point of wanting titles to show. "We want to show more than just the usual films" they would say, which was followed by the taking of suggestions. And then people would suggest things they would take notes, but when you'd suggest Begotten they would say, "NO" with a final certainty that only a condemned man hears when asked if the Governor called, seconds before the switch is thrown.

When we finally got to talk to the head of the cinema and asked why they would say that they hated it, that it was "a piece of shit" and they would never play it. They then made it very clear that he and his family were the final arbiter of good taste concerning the theater. My friend and myself got truly fed up at that point since it became clear that love of all film wasn't what the place was about, it was a love of film that they thought was good.

Of course the joke was on them since even though they swore never to run the film, they eventually did some 10 or 15 years later. It was a small victory on mine and Lou's part. (we did debate going to the screening and asked them what took so long for them to run it, but decided against it)

E Elias Merhige's Begotten is a unique film. Its cinematic equivalent of being trapped in someone else's nightmare. In its way its more disturbing than David Lynch's Earaserhead because of the way the film has been shot and there is even less to grasp on to.

Shot is a moody black and white film that has had the contrast messed with, among other things. Its a grainy trip into decaying film and decaying minds that appears to show either gods or demons awakening in some nether world in the next universe over. May not. Its a film that is purely visuals and sound with no real way of grasping what is happening except to force a meaning upon them.

Its a head trip. Its a mind scrambling film that will force you to think about and discuss what you think it means or what was going on even if you don't like it. Other than the art theater managers, I have never ever spoken to anyone who saw the film who could simply say it was good or bad. If they liked it they had to talk about the meaning, if they hated it, they had to say something about why the film was bad. I love that the film forces you to interact with it. You can't just dismiss it or accept it, its a film that requires commentary.

This is out in theaters a restored version Friday and worth a look for those who want the brain cells tickled.

Sanatorium Under The Sign of the Hourglass streams on Ovid starting today

With SANATORIUM UNDER THE SIGN OF THE HOURGLASS Timothy and Stephen Quay have turned several stories from writer and painter Bruno Schulz into a waking dream that takes us into another world. A mix of animation and live action this is a film that only the Quays could have made.

The plot, and I use that term loosely, has a chimney sweep trying to sell a magical box that has many lens. when you look through the lens on a certain day the cornea contained inside it will allow the viewer to see seven final moments from the life of the owner. In this case it reveals the story of a man named Josef, who takes an etherial train to a Santaorium that is out of sync with time. Its so out of sync that Josef's father who is dead, is still alive.

This film is its own world. It is a world that is best described in a dream world. Reality is subjective. Images repeat. Things shift from Quay style feral animation to real life. Things are cinematic one moment, theatrical at another. Aspect rations go from standard cinema ratios to ultra wide screen. Sone time the images are angular and sometimes something else. Everything exists only for the moment.

This is cinematic magic of the highest order. While the film may remind you of other filmmakers (Jiri Trnka, Peter Greenaway, Hans-Jurgen Syberberg , Walerian Borowczyk and others)  this film is actually more the work of the Quays. Their palette and sensibilities are all over this. 

And I am in awe of the the marriage of image and music. this has to be one of the greatest marriages of image and music that has ever been put on film. Rarely has any film used music so perfectly from start to finish. Neither lifts more than the other and the result is an emotional punch that leaves us haunted at the end.

While I think this film is possibly one of the best films of the year and of the Quays, I will freely admit that the pacing can be considered slow in the second half. I say this because I felt myself drifting off a bit. While normally that might has had me disengage, something that happened to some of my fellow writers, I stayed connected. The reason was the feeling that the whole affair is a dream. The drifting had me merging cinema and dream in the cheap seats.

Quibble aside, this is grand cinema. This is a true work of art and a masterpiece by two of cinema's masters. I highly recommend this film when it plays by you.

MICHAEL SOLACE (2025)

 

MICHAEL SOLACE is the latest film from Chris Esper. 

The film is the story of a writer who is trying to sell a film script. As he tries to make a deal various characters come to life and challenge him not to make the deal because the producer will remove him from the project and do it his way.

As much as I love Chris' films, this film didn't quite work for me. To be certain its the best looking and best crafted film he's made to date. However the narrative doesn't quite come together the way it should. Part of it is the fact that the layers of reality/unreality get a bit too messy. And part of it is there is something wrong with the title character. I don't know if its because the normally excellent actor Justin Thibault is wrong for the role or if there is something wrong with the writing. Thibault has worked with Esper numerous times before and has always hit it out of the park, so I'm not quite sure what is off but it is. For me this is a double from a director who normally hits home runs.

This isn't to say that the film is bad, it isn't. It's actually quite good. Esper and writer Kris Salvi's exploration of an artist and his battle to retain artistic control is timely in the age where corporations with no soul and less imagination want to control everything, more so when they are run by brain dead execs who want their blank stamp on things so they can say they they did that.

Definitely worth searching out.

Blue Danube (2021) Japan Cuts 2021

A town on a river is at war with it's neighbor. Everyday between 9 & 5 they fire volleys of bullets at each other. One of the soldiers is assigned to play the trumpet in the band. His view of the war begins to slowly change.

This is a mannered film that echoes the work of Ionesco, Kafka and Beckett that reals how bureaucracy and war are damning combination. Its a film that for all it's oddness seems right on target

As pointed as the film is the film is the running time of  almost two hours works against it. I am a fan of Beckett and Ionesco but at the same time I will be the first to admit that it is nigh impossible to do a film of their plays because in the real world of film, their mannered views of the film feels off. While BLUE DANUBE hits the right notes, there is a point where we disconnect from the film because  of the mannered nature.

Frankly I like the film a great deal. Indeed there are several moments that have been rolling around in my head for the last two weeks, but at the same over all it just hasn't stuck with me.

A Ship of Human Skin (2019)

Richard Bailey's A SHIP OF HUMAN SKIN is going to split audiences. You are either going to love this film or you are going to shut it off after five minutes. That is not to be taken as a bad thing, rather it is simply the result that Bailey's decidedly artistic style is not going to play well with anyone looking for a film that pays by Hollywood's established way of doing things.

I'm going to be upfront and say that this film challenged me. I put it on and I wasn't certain what I was seeing at first. Art film collides with a documentary style. A TV interview appears in the middle. There is a feel of docudrama. The film seems to shift genres. I wasn't certain what I was seeing and my initial reaction was to walk away.

And then something happened, my preconceived notions started to fall away. I started to lean into the film. I wanted to know what was going to happen and how Bailey was going to get me there. While I wasn't certain of this story of two young women and a murder, I was falling in love with the filmmaking and how it was making me feel. As someone who wants a film to engage me I was truly engaging with a film that was challenging me on all sorts of levels. This is a film that will challenge you.

I don't know how to critique this film. It's not tat I don't want to say  if it's good or bad, rather it is a matter of simply not being able to discuss it in terms of any other film. A SHIP OF HUMAN SKIN is not like anything you've seen before, or I've seen before and that limits what I can say.

What I am comfortable saying is that is you want a film that is exactly  like every other Hollywood narrative stay away. This film isn't for you. On the other hand if you want a one of kind, perhaps slightly off kilter work of art that you may or may not like, but which is going to grab you by the lapels and drag you t the finish a hundred minutes in the future this film is for you.

Or in other words this is exactly the sort of film Unseen Films was set up to highlight.

The Open (2016) Ithaca Fantastik 2016

With the world plunged into war a highly ranked tennis pro and her coach retreat to the country. There they kidnap a soldier who once  was ranked 942nd before the shooting started. Their the plan is to stage the tennis open canceled by the destruction of civilization - with invisible balls and rackets.

Seemingly WTF were they thinking idea becomes a brilliant dystopian/end of the world film. On a certain level the film is a bit more about the ideas than the characters and plot, but at the same time if you give yourself over to it  the film springs suddenly and marvelously to life as a brilliant riff on a potentially over done genre.

Watching the film I didn't know what the hell to think about it. I thought perhaps it was going to be a film that thought it was more clever than it was. I didn't think I was going to click with it. I was certain that at some point I was just going to say "yea right" and throw up my hands and walk away. Instead I was sucked in and I realized that the film had something to say about what it means to be human, the need to finish things we start and any number of other things it has rolling around in it's ultimately very clever head.

I really liked this film. More importantly this was one of those films where while I'm watching it all I wanted to do was stop the film, call up all of my friends and say "come and see this. I've got a film that's doing something new"

Highly recommended, especially for anyone who likes films to be heady. Let's hope this film gets a release beyond the festival circuit because it will give many people food for thought.

Curtain Raiser: The Film Society of Lincoln Center presents Obscure Pleasures: The Films of Walerian Borowczyk

This week: a chance to see a stellar line-up of films directed by Polish/French surrealist Walerian Borowczyk, at The Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York City. Obscure Pleasures screens a dozen Borowczyk films, including his cult classic The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne (1981), 1979's Immoral Women, his animated Theatre of Mr. and Mrs. Kabal (1967), 1976's rock-scored The Streetwalker. 1977's Behind Convent Walls is chock-full o' sexually-frustrated nuns, and The Story of Sin (1975) mixes passionate eroticism and a scathing attack on the Roman Catholic church.

That's not all: more Borowczyk films (several in new digital restorations), a compilation of Borowczyk's shorts, and series co-curator David Bird presents his documentaries on Borowczyk in A Dazzling Imagination. On display in the Film Society's Furman Gallery is Walerian Borowczyk: Posters and Lithography, a collection of rare and dazzling movie posters and art.

A master of blending Dadaism and sexuality, Borowczyk both built upon and challenged the mores of the Sexual Revolution, resulting in his much-discussed, often-banned body of work. (Step aside, kids, this one's a little too hot for you!)

I still don't know how to pronounce "Borowczyk," but I'm sure I'll discover how at the series. Find out too, won't you?



Obscure Pleasures: The Films of Walerian Borowczyk runs April 2-9 at The Film Society of Lincoln Center in Manhattan; see the full schedule and details at the Film Society website.

In the Woods(2013)

Very short short, it runs about 4 minutes  that plays like some sort of dark nightmare as a person traveling through the woods sees strange figures.

The danger of writing up a short that is not fully story driven and plays out more on a deeply psychological and visceral level rears its ugly head is saying too much. How do I write up a film that were you watching it in a darkened room or theater might very well kick you to the curb?

You can't do it without spoiling it for everyone. If I could embed  the short so you could see it before discussing it I would, but I can't. All I can say is  this is a wonderfully brick to the side of the head sort of film. Its one of those that make you want to see it again right away because it's like- Oh Shit what was that and why do I feel beaten up. I don't know but I'd like to investigate why.

If you get a chance to taste this demonic little blotter paper I highly suggest you do so since it will mess you up.