Begotten (film)

Plot

The story opens with a robed, profusely bleeding "God" disemboweling itself, with the act ultimately ending in its death. A woman, Mother Earth, emerges from its remains, brings the dead body to arousal, and inseminates herself with its semen. Becoming pregnant, she wanders off into a vast and barren landscape. The pregnancy manifests in a fully grown convulsing man whom she leaves to his own devices.

The "Son of Earth" meets a group of faceless nomads who seize him with what is either a very long umbilical cord or a rope. The Son of Earth vomits organic pieces, and the nomads excitedly accept these as gifts. The nomads finally bring the man to a fire and burn him. "Mother Earth" encounters the resurrected man and comforts him. She seizes the man with a similar umbilical cord. The nomads appear and proceed to rape her. Son of Earth is left to mourn over the lifeless body.

A group of characters appear and carry Mother Earth to another place, where they dismember her, later returning for Son of Earth. After he, too, is dismembered, the group buries the remains, planting the parts into the crust of the earth. The burial site becomes lush with flowers. Grainy photographs of God Killing Himself are shown. In a final scene, "Mother Earth" and "Son of Earth" are seen again in a flashback, this time wandering through a forest.

Cast

Development

Begotten was written, produced, and directed by Edmund Elias Merhige. Development for the film began in 1984. Merhige, who owned a small theatre production company in New York City at the time, had worked on several different experimental theatre productions up to that point and was working on developing his next project. He had originally intended for the film to be a theatre production, and later recalled: "I originally thought of it as a dance theatre with live music piece that we would do at Lincoln Center." It was only after discovering that it would cost a quarter of a million dollars to produce that Merhige decided to make the script into a motion picture. Merhige, who was twenty at the time he wrote the script, was inspired by the theories and ideas of Antonin Artaud and Friedrich Nietzsche, which in his opinion had not been developed on film to the fullest extent. Film critic Eric D. Snider pointed out that David Lynch's Eraserhead might have influenced the film's visual style as well. The film incorporates many different religious themes and events from Christian and Slavic mythology including Creation, Mother Earth, and various other religious themes on which the events that take place in the film are loosely based upon.

Filming

Filming took place over a period of three and a half years in several different locations, with Merhige filling multiple roles in the film's production including working on the film's cinematography, and special effects. The film was shot using a 16mm Arriflex camera on black and white reversal film. While filming, Merhige would experiment with the film reel to give it an old, withered look. This included running the unshot negative through sandpaper in order to scratch it up before shooting. Still unsatisfied with the overall effect, Merhige decided to use an optical printer but was unable to find one within the film's budget. He then constructed one himself using old, spare parts that he acquired from camera stores and special effects houses. The film was shot in several different locations, the majority of which took place on a construction site on the border between New York City, and New Jersey for a period of 20 days.

Home media

The film was released on DVD in 2001 by World Artists.

Critical reception

Begotten has received mostly positive reviews from critics. Film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 69%, based on 9 reviews, with a rating average of 6.3/10. In 2012, Complex included the film on its list of 50 Most Disturbing Movies.

Marc Savlov from the Austin Chronicle called the film "Experimental, haunting, dreamlike, and intentionally confounding". "Merhige's stylized nightmare/dreamscape is a calculatedly misbegotten travelogue through Hell, accompanied by a jittery, muffled soundtrack of caterwauling crickets, doomed souls and worse." Horror News.net gave the film a positive review, stating, "Begotten is hard to consume on many levels. Though in that consumption is also a smattering of brilliance". Jonathan Rosenbaum from the Chicago Reader praised the film calling it "a remarkable if not extremely upsetting and gory black-and-white experimental feature", further stating: "If you're squeamish you should avoid this like the plague; others may find it hard to shake off the artistry and originality of this visionary effort. And if you're looking to be freaked out you shouldn't pass it up." Susan Sontag called it "one of the 10 most important films of modern times".

Angelo from BloodyGoodHorror.com gave the film a positive review; stating in his review of the film, "In a way, it inspires so much emotion on such a deep and raw level, it’s a moving and poignant film. However, the message it makes is not pretty. You will see the horrors that man is capable of in shockingly graphic detail. But if you’re like me, and wondering if you’ve been desensitized after years of horror flicks, it’ll show you whether you can still feel or not". Author and independent filmmaker John Kenneth Muir awarded the film two and a half out of a possible four stars, calling it "an experimental, one-of-a-kind cinematic experience". In his review, Muir praised the film's originality and powerful imagery, while criticizing the running time as being too long.

The film is currently banned in Singapore due to its graphic and disturbing content.