Birth

Programme Notes

A shocking five years since Jonathan Glazer's blistering feature-film debut, Birth seems at first almost wilfully to rush to the opposite polar extremity.

After the perspiration and warm earth colours of the Costa Del Crime and the motor-mouth of Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast, Glazer's new film gives us a wintry New York and an emotionally frozen Nicole Kidman - sporting a Mia Farrow bob of Rosemary's Baby vintage. Kidman plays Anna, a woman rebuilding her life with a new man after the sudden death of her husband Sean, but who is confronted by a 10-year-old boy who claims to be Sean, and certainly seems to know far more than he should…

Birth might have swapped The Stranglers' 'Peaches' for Wagner, and expletives for a muted, contemplative pace, but it's no less an intense experience, a meditation on mortality and maturity, held together by a stunning performance from Kidman (sandwiched between the hyped psychodrama of Lars von Trier's Dogville and the uneasy camp of The Stepford Wives) and another stand-out one from ivansxtc's Danny Huston as Kidman's fiancé.

Predictably, Birth didn't set the box office on fire, but then Steven Sodebergh's accomplished Solaris didn't either, with which it shares a good-looking and intelligent star, mature themes articulated without excessive dialogue, and ravishing composition that screams big-screen. As well as Polanski overtones, there's a hint of Festival favourite Nicolas Roeg, not just in the Don't Look Now flashes of the young Sean, but also a strong dash of his 1987 Dennis Potter collaboration Track 29.
Birth doesn't give you straight answers, but it does demonstrate a major film-maker fast maturing.

Jonathan Glazer (1965-) b. London.

Glazer is a promising new director with a background in advertising and music videos He has been responsible for some of the most striking visuals seen on television in the last ten years. Glazer was responsible for the Guinness 'The Swimmer' and 'The Surfer' advertising campaigns. Glazer earned further recognition for a succession of award-winning music promos; including Radiohead's 'Kharma Police' and 'Street Spirit', Jamiroquai's 'Virtual Insanity' and Blur's 'Universal'. His debut feature film, Sexy Beast (2000), received critical acclaim around the world. Starring Ray Winstone and Ben Kinsley, this was not your typical British gangster movie and breathed new life into a tired genre

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