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Year 1990 (possibly 89 or 91)
Country USA
Director E. Elias Merhige
Screenplay E. Elias Merhige
Producer E. Elias Merhige
Cinematographer E. Elias Merhige
Composer Evan Albam
Cast: Brian Salzberg, Donna Dempsey, Stephen Charles Barry
Genre horror, fantasy
Budget $33,000
Premiere (world) April 30, 1990
Duration 78 min.
Additional information: Black and white. Silent.
Brief plot summary: The God is old and insane; he disembowels himself with a razor in an abandoned house, lonely and unwanted. Mother Earth, having waited for his death, performed oral sex on his still-warm body and fertilized herself with his seed. Far away in the desert, she gave birth to the hideous Son of Earth – Flesh on Bones, who was then found by lepers and they set off on a journey with him.
Several reviews:
The film "Begotten" is a metaphysical creation, unparalleled in world cinema. A brilliant work in which the author communicates with the audience not with the primitive language of words and sentences, but with the language of symbols and metaphors. It is even difficult to imagine how many stable and abstract symbols Edmund Merhige managed to incorporate into a 72-minute film. It is simply impossible to list them all! This must be seen. Although, no. This must be contemplated – and even then, not everyone will be able to.
In "Begotten" there are scenes that cut so sharply and clearly into our "normal" consciousness that we will never be able to forget them. We – thick-skinned aesthetes – will not be able to fully appreciate all the magnificence of this film if we cannot detach ourselves from our existence. We must forget everything before watching this film.
This film is a given. It tells about our human essence, about sin, about vice, and about redemption. "Begotten" cannot be forgotten. After watching it, it will appear to us in our dreams, scenes from the film will play in our minds, and we will relive everything again. No, this is not a masterpiece. This is a given. A gift from above. A divine phenomenon.
I will move on to more material and undeniable things. An amazing, unique cinematographic work. Edmund Merhige turned out to be an incredibly talented and gifted person; he was able to create a sense of presence without spending huge amounts of money on special effects and other trinkets for girls. He shows it dryly, but so naturalistically that the viewer feels that all the horrors are happening behind the door, and he is peeking through the keyhole. Amazing!
This film is undoubtedly extravagant due to the irrational understanding of what is happening in it. A dark phantasmagoria strikes your consciousness with its obsessive sophistication. "Begotten" is a ruthless dismemberer that carries out its terrible deed without causing any harm to those who are able to contemplate this magnificent creation, but it leaves behind a very painful memory (especially for people with a rich imagination) of this seventy-two-minute agony of the feeling of reality of your conscious existence. Yes, it is an agony that never reached its intended finish.
"Begotten" is created for people with refined taste and a non-standard way of thinking. Like any arthouse masterpiece, this film can be interpreted in different ways, since it is not an attempt to accurately reflect real-world phenomena. The difficulty in perceiving this picture is due rather to the monotony of slowly flowing episodes, which promises imminent boredom (this is the main drawback of the film, in my opinion). But the artistic depth of the elements that make up the integrity of the film compensates for this shortcoming. The film is largely contradictory in its complexity, but one thing is beyond any doubt: what we call a masterpiece, I will call "Begotten" with this eloquent word, without any doubt.
