Birth directed by Jonathan Glazer, is an interesting take on how people would react if their loved one was resurrected into another body. Though there are some similar films out there, none of them have the same mystery and confusion as this film. Unlike many, this film, "is an effective thriller precisely because it is true to the way sophisticated people might behave in this situation. Its characters are not movie creatures, gullible, emotional and quickly moved to tears. They're realists, rich, a little jaded." This is shown by all the characters having a hard time believing that the little boy is really Sean. Anna being the only exception to this. Now lets first take a look at some interesting scenes from the film and how they are secretly used to move the story along. The first scene is also the prologue to the film. It starts off with Sean saying, "If I lost my wife and, uh, the next day, a little bird landed on my windowsill, looked me right in the eye, and in plain English said, 'Sean, it's me, Anna. I'm back ...' What could I say? I guess I'd believe her. Or I'd want to. I'd be stuck with a bird. But other than that no. I'm a man of science. I just don't believe that mumbo-jumbo. Now, that's gonna have to be the last question. I need to go running before I head home." This first speech is easy to dismiss at first, but it turns out to be very important to the rest of the story. As you can see in the video above, Sean is running and ends up dying under the bridge. What makes Sean's response to resurrection so interesting, is that it shows how Anna acts. When young Sean tells her that he is her dead husband, we see Anna first laugh it off as a joke, but she never really stops thinking about it. Which is similar to how Sean talked about how he'd want to believe that the bird is Anna. This leads us to the next scene, which takes place shortly after. The next scene that is important to this film's progression is the opera scene. Anna and Joseph go see an opera and as they are sitting, the camera zooms in on Anna. "This telescopic close-up uncovers Anna's waves of despair, ecstasy, grief and astonishment as the magisterial overtones of Wagner overflow around her." This shot is probably the best scene from the whole film. Not only do we see what she is going through, but we also see that she is starting to believe that Sean has really returned. Her emotions fluctuate between sadness to happiness and there are times were she even starts to smile. From this point on, Anna starts spending more time with the boy and she soon starts to believe that he is Sean. Even as everyone else around her tells her that he is not. An example of this is shown in the video on the bottom left. One final scene I want to look at is the one where Joseph finally loses it and starts hitting young Sean. A picture of the scene is shown on the top right. This scene shows us two important things. The first being that Joseph is fed up with the boy and how Anna actually believes him. Therefore, we finally see Joseph snap after holding in his rage for a while now. The second important thing to take from this film is that young Sean is acting like a little boy here. He kicks the chair and annoys Joseph, which is something that a kid would do. The same can be said when Anna buys him ice cream and when Sean eats the cake. All these scenes show that Sean is still a little boy and that he might not really be the real Sean. Now that we went through some important scenes, lets take a look at the director and what people thought of this film. The director stated, "We aimed to make something robust in which every question leads to another. I'm not a Buddhist and I don't believe in reincarnation; I don't think I could do a film about it if I did. I was more interested in the idea of eternal love. I wanted to make a mystery, the mystery of the heart". After reading the directors thinking process, it is easy to understand why the film is how it is. Though that doesn't stop people from commenting things like, "All I could think, wrote Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly, was what in God's name do the filmmakers think they're doing?" I find this comment funny because that was the same impression I got when I was watching it. Overall this film is an interesting take on the thriller and mystery genre. It keeps the audience guessing as to who young Sean really is and what is really going on. The ending doesn't do much to help explain the plot and therefore the audience is left with their own thoughts and choices. It is up to each person to decide if Sean really was reincarnated or if it was just some kind of "curse" or mental disorder. In the end, Birth is a great film to watch, as long as you know what you are getting yourself into.
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