The series A posteriori le cinéma is intended to be an opportunity to celebrate the 7the art by revisiting flagship titles that celebrate important anniversaries.
In New York, Anna is about to marry Joseph for a second time. About ten years earlier, Sean, her first husband, died suddenly. But then at the door of the young woman’s luxurious apartment appears a boy claiming to be the reincarnation of Sean. At first incredulous, Anna becomes doubtful, then convinced. So it is in Birth (The birth), mysterious, elegant and twisty film co-written and directed by Jonathan Glazer. Unlike his recent The Zone of Interest (The area of interest), Birth was rather poorly received at festivals, with the exception of Nicole Kidman’s interpretation, before taking the stage to total indifference twenty years ago this month. A look back at a work that manages to fascinate while daring to take the risk of repelling.
During its unveiling at the Venice Film Festival, Birth was the subject of boos. Certainly, a sequence showing Nicole Kidman and Cameron Bright taking a bath caused discussion, even if the actress was never naked in the presence of her young partner and both wear flesh-colored jumpsuits in the wide shot they share.
Love story, story of mourning, Birth is filmed like a horror film. Ultimately, it is the bizarreness of the proposition, between ethereal psychotic delirium and unhinged fairy tale, which is undoubtedly responsible for the reception.
Although in fairness, the film had many strong defenders among the major American media, from New York Times au magazine Rolling Stone passing through the Los Angeles Timesthe Chicago Sun-Timesthe Village Voiceor even Variety. Same in France: five stars in The Inrockuptiblesand four in The World et Release : not exactly a critical burning at the stake.
However, after the brief festival controversy, the film disappeared before emerging from the shadows, in the light of Jonathan Glazer’s two subsequent films: Under the Skin and the aforementioned The Zone of Interest.
“Either you accept the film’s argument or you reject it — and if you accept it, then marvel as Glazer unwraps this poisoned candy whose pleasures cling to the palate long after the final, disconcerting fade to black.” , writes Ryan Lattanzio in an anniversary text eloquently titled “ Why Ten Years Later, Jonathan Glazer’s Birth Is Still a Masterpiece »published by IndieWire in 2014.
The bold “argument” came to Jonathan Glazer without warning. In 2004, the filmmaker, who then only had one feature film to his credit, the stylized gangster drama Sexy Beastsums up to Time Out : “There’s this kid, and he tells a woman he’s her dead husband — and he’s 10 years old. »
On the advice of a producer friend, Glazer went to Paris to speak with the screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, famous in particular for his collaborations with Luis Buñuel (The Diary of a Maid, The discreet charm of the bourgeoisie, The Milky Way). With his surrealist sensibility, Carrière was an ideal mentor for Glazer and his co-writer Milo Addica.
Phenomenal Kidman
Without having written with her specifically in mind, Glazer intended to offer the lead role to Robin Wright (Forrest Gump). But that was without taking into account the desire of Nicole Kidman, who had just won an Oscar for The Hours (The hours) and then the most prominent actress in Hollywood, to play Anna.
However, as he admitted in 2006 to the critic and film historian David Thomson in the latter’s biography of Nicole Kidman, Jonathan Glazer was not certain that “the most prominent actress in Hollywood” was the one which was suitable for this unique film. As Glazer recounted to Thomson, his reluctance dissipated as soon as he met Kidman.
“She started talking [du scénario] as if she had written it herself. Nicole understood the low frequency role. On a fundamental level. So all the changes I made after that, all the things I threw at her out of the blue, she absorbed them. »
On this subject, Glazer clarified in an interview given earlier this year to Los Angeles Times : “Sometimes, at midnight, three or four pages of dialogue arrived at Nicole’s house to be shot the next day, pages completely different from those she had prepared. She arrived in the morning, never late, knowing the new lines perfectly and never complaining. She supported me all the way. She knew I was looking for something and she protected me; she believed in what we were doing. »
Returning to Kidman’s biography, Glazer concludes: “She inhabited the concept to the point where she could tell the story with just her face.” She understood it tacitly. How to bring the inside out. »
This observation is never more clear than during the emblematic scene of the film, at the opera, when the camera captures Nicole Kidman in close-up and remains glued to her face. Immobile, mute, the actress is phenomenal, expressing the full range of contradictory emotions that Anna feels.
“This telescopic close-up reveals Anna’s waves of despair, ecstasy, grief and amazement as Wagner’s masterful strains swell around her,” describes Ryan Lattanzio in IndieWire.
In the interview with Los Angeles Times of 2024 mentioned just now, Kidman returns to this scene, as well as to her understanding of the character and the film: “I don’t find [le film] strange, but maybe that means I’m strange. But I never found it strange. I found it profound, the way the film addresses grief and shows how people fill in gaps in order to explain things; things they need to explain, and how they are then incredibly open to all possibilities, being in a state of deep vulnerability. And also, the idea that mourning is not an end in itself, because it is not. The heartbreak never ends. And you see it during that scene at the opera. [Anna] simply lets herself believe that this little boy is her husband. For her, it’s the easiest route. »
In short, this is the thinking behind this demonstration of dramatic virtuosity.
A beating heart
It must be said that in 2004, Nicole Kidman’s brilliance had been established for a while. Teenage actress in Australia from 1983 (BMX Bandits / The BMX gang), she moved to Hollywood in 1990 after the international success of the thriller Dead Calm (White calm) and famously married Tom Cruise, with whom she co-starred in Days of Thunder (Thunder days) et Far and Away (Distant horizons). For a great To Die For (Ready for anything), lots of forgettable stuff during this transition period…
Kidman had to wait Eyes Wide Shut (Eyes wide closed), in 1999, to be able to give the full measure of his immense talent – eclipsing on screen his future ex-spouse, by all accounts. came Moulin Rouge!, The Others (The others), The Hours, Dogville…In this, Birth closes a prodigious sequence of films.
Already, in 2006, in his contribution to the biography of the star, Jonathan Glazer was philosophical about the flop of Birth. “I think the film touched some people who wanted to be touched. I think the film was a failure with other people. So what? The effort was worth it. It was worth everything I got out of it and everything I didn’t get out of it. Sometimes a heart can be felt, even from a distance. »
Fueled by the performance of Nicole Kidman, that of Birth seems to beat stronger with each passing year.
The movie Birth is available on VOD on iTunes and Prime Video.
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