Birth (2004, Jonathan Glazer) with Carlos Aguilar - Criterion Collection Spine #1298

"It captures an uncanny feeling that relates to grief, that there's something after, the hope we could get more time with someone we love."

In this episode of Why This Film?, Film critic Carlos Aguilar joins me to explore Birth, Jonathan Glazer's 2004 psychological thriller and Criterion Collection Spine #1298.

Birth follows Anna, a widow living a comfortable Manhattan life who has finally agreed to remarry, ten years after the sudden death of her husband Sean. Then a 10-year-old boy appears at her mother's birthday party claiming to be him. What follows is an unsettling exploration of grief, obsession, and the desperate ways we cling to those we've lost, asking whether the person we mourn is ever truly the person who died, or just the story we've constructed in their place.

Carlos brings his perspective as a film critic, writer, and member of both the LA Film Critics Association and the National Society of Film Critics. His work has appeared in The Wrap, Vulture, IndieWire, RogerEbert.com, and The Criterion Collection. He's a passionate advocate for representation and the cinematic legacy of Latin America, and his deep connection to the "mystery of the heart" in film makes him the perfect guide for Glazer's haunting formal precision.

Together we move through the film scene by scene and discuss:

• How grief constructs the dead
• The role class and wealth in Anna's grief
• Nicole Kidman's devastating performance and why this remains one of her most daring roles
• The concert scene
• Whether Anna ever truly completes the grieving process
• The bathtub scene's reception in 2004
• What happens when we lose someone twice

Whether you're discovering Birth for the first time or returning to it, this conversation explores why a film initially dismissed and misunderstood has become recognized as one of the most essential meditations on grief in contemporary cinema.

Hollywood ManeStays - Not a pin, not a clip. Just Better.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:06

It captures an uncanny feeling that relates to grief, to the hope that there's something after, the hope that we could get more time with someone that we love.

Ron 0:18

Hello everybody, my name is Ron, and welcome to Why This Film, a podcast where we explore the artistry, cultural impact, and legacy of movies in the Criterion Collection. Each episode, I sit down with experts in Cenophiles to ask why was this film chosen for the collection? And why does it still matter today? In this episode, we are navigating themes of reincarnation within the high society hallways of Manhattan with Earth, the 2004 film from director Jonathan Glazer. Part supernatural mystery, part meditation on the persistence of grief, Birth follows Anna, a widow who has finally found a path forward ten years after the sudden death of her husband Sean. She's engaged to be married, but a 10-year-old boy appears at her doorstep, claiming to be her dead husband. What follows is an unsettling exploration of the limits of love and the desperate ways we cling to those that we've lost. It is a film that asks a deeply uncomfortable question. If the person you loved most returned in a form you couldn't possibly accept, would you still find a way to love them as before? My guest today is Carlos Aguilar, a renowned film critic, writer, and a vital voice in modern cinematic discourse. Carlos's journey into criticism is one of resilience and passion. He was selected as one of six young critics for the inaugural Roger Ebert Fellowship in 2014, and his astute insights have appeared in the LA Times, The Rap, Vulture, IndyWire, Roger Ebert.com, and the Criterion Collection. He is a member of both the LA Film Critics Association and the National Society of Film Critics. Beyond his reviews, Carlos is a passionate advocate for representation, often using his platform to highlight the cinematic legacy of Latin America. His deep connection to the mystery of the heart and film makes him the perfect person to discuss the haunting formal precision of Glazier's birth. And with that, here's my conversation with Carlos Aguilar. I've been really anxious to speak with you about this because of all the films in the collection, I left it wide open for you. You've written multiple essays, and I was I wouldn't say I was surprised. Because we don't know each other, so I don't know why I would be why I would be surprised. But Birth, do you have a history with that film?

SPEAKER_02 2:21

Yeah, I mean, I've been a big fan. I tweeted about it for over the years, like many times. Whenever I think about it, I will tweet on like the fans will come out. I think maybe I don't know, a few years back, I tweeted about it like long before it was like Criterion. I actually never even expected it to be on Criterion. I tweeted about it and in shock because I I realized a few years back that it was rotten on Rotten Tomatoes, that it had very low score and a lot of negative reviews. And so up until that point, I had lived like all these years thinking that everyone else thought that it was a masterpiece, like I did. And so it came to me as a surprise to realize that most critics didn't like it. My history with it is back in the early 2000s when I was coming of age as a cinophile, I I probably because of the movie The Hours, I sort of clinged to Nicole Kidman as the actress that I felt was just so incredibly versatile and just like talented. And so back then I was just like watching anything that she was in. She had a moment in the early 2000s, and part of that moment was birth and large bontiers, dog bill, and there were other movies in that era, so it was sort of like the peak of Nicole Kidman taking chances and risks. And so I remember renting Birth from the local video store, it was like a mom-mom-pop operation and where I lived in here in Los Angeles, and I rented it and watched it, and it was spellbinding to me. It was just such an incredible experience. And then I remember that the year, a year later, or like a few months later, I don't remember, it was my my next birthday. I remember one of my older cousins taking me to uh uh a physical media store. I think it was uh it might have been like one of those like FYE, like for your entertainment kind of stores at the mall. And he was like, Oh, you can pick two DVDs, and this is like 2005 or six, maybe 2005. Um and he's like, Pick two movies, you know, for your birthday, and you know, because back then DVDs were like 20, 25 bucks, so like two DVDs were like a big deal. And I picked birth and house of flying daggers, I remember, and it's like you know, this 15-year-old picking birth is like the weirdest thing, you know, as my birthday present. Um and so I just before doing this podcast with you, I rewatched it on the same DVD that I've had for all these years. That's cool. Um, which has no special features, so that's definitely an upgrade for the criterion because that DVD has the trailers on the movie, and that's it, not an interview, not a making of nothing. And so that's sort of my history with it. I've always been infatuated. It's been a couple it had been a couple years since I'd seen it before I rewatched it for this, and I found it again, just find myself like gasping at certain moments and really kind of being kind of taken by the atmosphere that Jonathan Glacer builds. And so yeah, I'm still shocked that so many people didn't like it. I went back and saw some of the reviews, but I'm glad that if anything, the Criterion's release validates what I've always felt about this movie.

Ron 5:10

Olivia Lang wrote the essay for the release, but it seems like they missed then a great opportunity to include a second essay with something that you've written with your that's a pretty uh that's a pretty incredible history of something like this.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

I just seen looking back, I think it's very funny that like me as a 15-year-old, like it says so much about me and who I was already at 15 that for my birthday at such a young age I wanted a DVD of birth.

Ron 5:33

Um so what was your reaction learning then that 2004 Venice Film Festival it was met with booze after the screening, reported booze and cat calls.

SPEAKER_02 5:43

I guess my reaction is kind of uh disdain for those people. Um it's funny. Like I before doing this, I went back to Brown Tomatoes. I was like, who liked it and who did it? And so I was like, you know, I was so happy that some of the critics that I hold dear were on the right side of history. Like Roger Ever was very positive. I think the the quote that they have from his review is something like this movie, I'm paraphrasing, but something along the lines of like this movie captures how wealthy people will react to something like this happening. I think that's such a excellent and precise and accurate description of the movie. I think A.O. Scott from the New York Times was very positive on it back then. There's definitely there's all the positive reviews that are now in the aggregator or whatnot in Drone Tomatoes, a lot of the positive ones are actually reviews, like contemporary reviews, like be not contemporary, but like today's reviews of uh of the film, like people that just review it this year for the criterion release, or like in the past few years, and those are mostly positive, so the ties seems to really have turned, or maybe there's a contingent of millennials like myself who watched it at a young age and have been beguiled for it by it by for a long time. I don't know. But there were some people back then at the sort of major outlets that were again on the right side of history on this one.

Ron 7:00

Is this a film that, in your opinion, rewards multiple watches? It's been a theme. It's been a theme with a lot of the guests that I've had so far of those films. When you watch it a few times, it hits you differently.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

I think yes, but at the same time, it's also a film that hit me the first time. It's not one of those that I like, oh, I need to sort of like rewatch. It was like to me, it worked the first time. And I also will say that I am not a constant re-watcher. There are only a few movies that I watch many times just because I'm of the mind of like, well, there's so many movies I haven't even seen once.

Ron 7:30

I know that you know I struggle.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

I usually re-watch things when there's a reason for me to watch it when I'm writing an essay, when I'm writing when I'm doing a podcast, when there's a reason for me to re-watch it, like I'll rewatch something with a few exceptions. Like, there are there's some movies that I do rewatch just for the pleasure of it, but they're very, very few. And so, yeah, and I I will say, like, it's not, I mean, I was probably a little bit of a kind of a snob teenager wanting to watch international films at that age, but my main draw to this movie was Nicole Kidman. Like, I was not aware who Jonathan Glazer was, I had not seen Sexy Beast. The the the kind of the appeal to me was like being a complete easy in watching anything that Nicole Kidman was in. And sometimes I came with like horrible things. Like I remember going to the theater to watch uh Bewitch, um, you know, uh, or uh or the The Human Stain, which is with Anthony uh Anthony Hopkins, you know, so but but I will that's a period to me that I think of like that is a moment that Nicole Kidman sort of cemented her legacy as an artist that went beyond making Hollywood movies because he had already won the Oscar for the hours, he'd been in Moulin Rouge, he'd done To Die For, which is kind of a daring film too. But working, you know, with Jonathan Glazer in this movie and then doing Dogbuild with Lars Bontreur just really I think showed to the industry that she was about the the craft and the art and doing something interesting and compelling, unlike uh some other Hollywood stars, I might not be as interested in doing that.

Ron 8:54

Well, there's no doubt that we will get into her performance in birth for sure. I but you mentioned Jonathan Glazer. His filmography is very interesting to me with Under the Skin, Zone of Interest, Birth and Sexy Beast. I feel like when I look at a director's filmography, I can sense a through line or a theme, and I'm having trouble connecting these four. I was hoping that you could help me. I'm not really sure like what the through line is that I'm missing with his work.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

Maybe sexy vis might be slightly of an outlier, but I mean I would say that all of them are about he's really great about capturing this uncanny feeling, like putting into film something that it's hard to explain into words, like this kind of uneasiness about certain things and I guess the human condition in a very broad kind of uh sense. There's just something so yeah, unnerving and enigmatic about the movies that he makes in a way that really truly gets under your skin, not to use the pun, but it is very sort of like this kind of uh overwhelming uneasiness that he really captures and uh with birth, uh I mean I guess I don't know it would be controversial, but I feel like Birth to me is the best movie he ever made, even though The Son of Interest is a masterpiece and is Oscar winning and under the skin, I think, is incredible. I think to me, if I think of a movie that's the best thing he ever did, is this one for me. And then we could get into like, is that I I'm always like very conscious of like, is it nostalgia? Isn't what I where where I watched it at the age that I watched something, I'm very conscious of those things, but I think those things are valid, you know.

Ron 10:24

I think for sure. I think birth and zone of interest. If you're walking out of the movie theater and having a conversation standing in the parking lot, which is some of my favorite times that I have in life, those two are ones that you could look at your watch and say, Oh, a lot of time has passed because there's so much to get into with birth and this these themes of grief. And then you brought up the class, you know, the how the upper class may deal with it. I didn't even consider that. Yeah, that first watch, there was mystique to the first watch of is this really her husband? Is this kid nuts? He knows so much. What the hell is going on here? The second watch rewards you in a different way because the mystery may be gone, but I still was like, well, how does he know? How does he know who told her Santa Claus was a real? You know what I mean? Like, like, is he Sean? Is he I I'm still like those more and more those questions kept coming up even after multiple watches. And I think that's just the brilliance of the writing and the filmmaking itself. You're in their faces. There's so many close-ups of all the characters. You are right there, and you can't really hide the emotions you can't hide. The like the color of this film is unlike a lot of his films. Zone of Interest has its own color grade. Sexy Beast is very bright, they're outside a lot, they're by the swimming pool, all that stuff. But this this color, it's like muted porcelain granite, something. I don't know. It's very sad. It's like being at a funeral parlor at times when they're in that apartment.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

For sure, yeah. It's very kind of oppressive and also very European in that sense. Like it feels like I'm thinking of like the films of Luis Bunuel or other kind of uh movies that depict the bourgeoisie in their high-rises, their palaces or whatnot, and it feels very there's uh an all-money kind of feel to this. These people have been wealthy for a long time. These people are all New York, it's also the winter, so they're wearing the coats, and there's the parties, and there's the the the guy who's uh I don't know if you call it the the doorman at the uh of the building. There is yeah, there's a sort of oppressive sense to to the color palette and to just how people look and how the interiors look in this place. So that's what I was thinking about Roger Evers' phrase about the notion that this is how these people in this kind of bubble of like wealth and and power would react to some of this. Because these people are like wealthy wealthy, right? Like if you think about they're having a rehearsal for the music of the wedding in their apartment and they brought the you know, three-string instruments, and you have people have never seen anything like that before. Yeah, and that's like a rehearsal, that's not even the wedding, that's just for them to like hear if they like this band for the wedding. And it's so it's like it's kind of a an insane kind of uh you know, not insane, but it's it's a powerful image that lets you know that these people are in a different class, and in that sense, it kind of helps because their concerns are never material in a way. Their concerns can be only about the emotions and the drama and what they're feeling because everything else is sort of like cover. Like you don't really you never really hear uh Nicole Kissman's character, Anna, be like, I'm gonna be late for work, I'm gonna be losing my job, I'm so worried about making money, and no one, you know, they're having these dinner parties there, they have a lived in housekeeper that that works for them. And so I think that all that is sort of like in the backdrop, but to me that it allows for all the other things to sort of exist in almost like a pure form because these characters are not concerned with like regular people regular life stuff, so they can really just be concerned about this emotions and how they feel and whatnot.

Ron 13:49

Yeah, that's really interesting because we can't all relate to that lifestyle. I know I can't, but we can all relate to what it feels like to lose someone close to us. So even though there's this very high society lifestyle that we can't relate to, we feel for Anna throughout the entire film. Maybe until the bathtub, but we all we do we feel for her throughout the entire film because we all we've all been there. And you and you mentioned emotion and and something that contributes. And I don't know if this is a hot take. You can tell me if it's a hot take. I felt that the best part of the film was the score. I don't know if you've if you had a ranking of best parts of things, but the score I I think the score is great.

SPEAKER_02 14:25

I think the best part for me are the performances, but uh um but the score is really great, and it's also like kind of a weird entry in Alexander Des Plaza's catalog, which is often more whimsical or more sort of genre film with his work with Guillermo del Toro or like Wes Anderson. It feels like this feels sort of like maybe it means earlier earlier in his career too, but he does feel kind of uh an interesting footnote in when you look at uh what he's what he's done over the years.

Ron 14:52

It's an early credit for him. He's won two Oscars for original score for Shape of Water and Grand Budapest Hotel. And just really quickly, I mean, that's probably a good enough resume to go over, but he also has credits on The Queen, King's Speech, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Argo Philomena imitation game Isle of Dogs, Little Women, Frank, the most recent Guillermo Frankenstein. It's one of the most accomplished composers working. And I don't know how he was found for this film, but whoever found him clearly saw the skill level and just how gifted he he is. Because when the film opens, it almost sounds like a Christmas movie. I mean, maybe the snow contributes, the joggy and the snow, but it's very upbeat and light until original Sean, I don't know what else to call him, OG Sean, collapses, and then you have the big drums that are somewhat like impending doom. So it's just it's just brilliant. I I love it. There's not a lot of dialogue, and the score has to do so much heavy lifting to help contribute to the emotion, besides, of course, the emotion that the actors are showing on their on their faces.

SPEAKER_02 15:54

Yeah, there's not a little dialogue, but there's precise and very sort of like you know, effective dialogue to me, you know. Yeah, I don't know if you want to get into any scenes, but there are definitely moments when I'm like, oh, this is like the perfect line. This is just enough for us to cling to the emotion and what's happening. Like when which Sean, kid Sean, I guess, just says I can't when he's being asked to apologize and he's been asked to say that he won't bother them again. But also the fact that it's like I can't and not I won't is like it almost speaks of something supernatural to me of like I cannot physically do this thing that you're asking me to, even if I wanted to. So yeah, I just feel like there is enough dialogue that that contributes the way that he chose it, what these characters say to each other, and the context just feels to me it elevates the kind of like allure of of the yeah, the enigmatic mystique of the film. Yeah.

Ron 16:45

I think we can jump into the to the film itself here. For sure. The film begins with a voiceover from a man named Sean, and the actor that is doing the voiceover, this is his only credit. I could not find him anywhere in the vast corners of the internet.

SPEAKER_02 16:59

Maybe it's uh a pseudonym or something, I don't know.

Ron 17:02

Yeah, it might it might be. The voiceover is a man named Sean. He's dismissing reincarnation. He calls it quote mumbo jumbo. He would only believe in reincarnation if a bird spoke to him, if his wife died and a bird came and spoke to him in plain English. So this is Sean dismissing the very thing that the film is about to ask us to consider for the next hour and 35 minutes. Is that Glazer, is he telling us up front to not take this belief of reincarnation seriously? Or is it something else and I'm completely missing it?

SPEAKER_02 17:30

Here's the thing that's fascinating to me that you mentioned that that voiceover is Sean, because I always felt that that voiceover was decontextualized from the movie. And what I mean by that is that when I watched the movie, I thought that maybe that that voiceover is from a stand-up comedian or from a radio thing. Like I almost to me it sounded like something that was not related to this person, but just sort of like uh an appendix of like someone's opinion on on reincarnation.

Ron 18:02

I didn't immediately think that it was Sean, the character saying I think the only reason I thought that is because at the end he says, if you excuse me, I have to go for a run or something like that. And then it cuts to him going. You are right.

SPEAKER_02 18:13

That's the only but you're otherwise before I take off, I have to go for a run. Yes.

Ron 18:17

Yeah, yeah. But otherwise, I think you're right. It could be anybody.

SPEAKER_02 18:21

And you know, and there's this choice that we never see his face. We don't see his face when he's running, but there's never Nicole Kidman's character, Anna, never holds a photo of him. We never really see anyone sort of like, you know, yeah, showing us an image of what Sean looked like, or am I mistaken? Because I I don't remember ever seeing what Sean looks like.

Ron 18:40

No, you're right. And I think when we get to the big reveal with with Clara, played by Ann Haish near the end of the film, we can then get into we never see Anna and Sean's relationship. We're only assuming what the relationship was like from Anna's perspective, and the only perspective we get from her is grief. A lot of films give you flashbacks, even if there's no dialogue. We get to see what their relationship was like. We don't get any of that. You're right.

SPEAKER_02 19:03

And I'm and I'm glad I'm glad that there's none of that, and I'm glad that there's no flashbacks. I'm very much uh against flashbacks with exceptions, but I do feel like they're kind of a crutch for a lot of filmmakers, a lot of storytelling when you when you have to sort of like bring us back there and rather than sort of like keeping the story in the present.

Ron 19:20

I love the opening sequence here because Sean runs into a tunnel, it gets really dark, he comes out the other side, and then when he hits that other tunnel, he doesn't make it. So I don't know if Glazer's trying to say we're showing you birth and death coming out of one tunnel, going into one, not coming out. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

Yeah, I think you're probably right, because the next image is a baby being born, and so it it does it does feel very much like kind of when when a live ends and other begins, and does that mean that that baby was born at the exact same moment when Sean died, and that's why his soul entered him? So I do think that all of these things are him implying that could this possibly be it, you know?

Ron 19:56

Yeah, I was I was gonna ask you what your read on that was of Glazer saying he has in one respect the voiceover saying, I don't believe in this, and then he shows us a death and a birth. So I'm not sure what he wants us to believe, and maybe that's the point.

SPEAKER_02 20:10

I think that to me, what he's saying with that is you can believe what you want, but these are the things that will probably lead you to believe this. Like he knows that the audience is gonna associate a death followed by by the birth of a child with the notion of reincarnation. I I wanted to say also earlier that when I'm thinking about Under the Skin, that film is very much enigmatic to a fault. You know, sort of like you sort of like gather pieces here and there of like what is this alien doing and whatnot. I think birth, because we do get a sort of revelation at the end, it's less, yeah, less sort of like up in the air. I think because we do get sort of a a confirmation of what's happening here, which I think it's it's interesting coming from him, because I feel like he would probably be the type of filmmaker that kind of doesn't really give you an answer. But because he does give an answer, then I think it becomes more about what this child has convinced himself of and his belief and his sort of like mental transmutation, even if it's just in his mind. I just feel like when I think about his work, this to me feels like a little more concrete than some of his other films where he's just kind of like more sparse in what he reveals.

Ron 21:19

Yeah, even in zone of interest, they never show you the other side of that wall. We know enough that we know what's going on on the other side of that wall. But he leaving it up to your imagination is more terrifying, I think, in some respects.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

Yeah, so I was, you know, I'm I'm still surprised that he actually gave the audience something concrete to sort of like feel like, okay, this is what it was.

Ron 21:37

Well, ten years later, we find Anna played by the just absolutely wonderful Nicole Kimm and I know you said she was having a moment at that period of time. It I don't think it ever stopped, really. You know, when you get into big little lies and then uh baby girl a couple years ago, like it she it may have never stopped for her. I mean, she's just absolutely unbelievable.

SPEAKER_02 21:54

Yeah, I agree. I mean, she continues to be a there in actress. I will maintain that I'm not sure. If she has done anything as daring and interesting as this and and Dogbill, but she continues to make interesting work for sure, more than some of her contemporaries. Or maybe I'm just kind of like this moment to me is kind of preserving amber and I'm like, this is the peak of Nicole Kidman, but that not to say that she hasn't done great performances in the year in the years since.

Ron 22:20

No, I think you're right, though. This is a pretty risky role when it comes to a lot of the subject matter. It's not just I mean, she believes this little she and well, we'll get there. She's visiting Sean's grave, her Sean's grave. They show her living a financially comfortable life, we'll say, in a very posh Manhattan apartment. She has agreed to marry Joseph, played by Danny Houston, who I think is also excellent in this film. When when when he's recounting the story of their engagement, I I paused it and thought, did he just give us this romantic anecdote, but really it was just him wearing her down? I mean, that's really the story. He presents it as something that's romantic. But I took it as like he basically just kept asking until she said yes.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

And I called her to see if she'd go out with me, but she said no. But I kept calling. It took one year to get her to have dinner with me. A year after that, I asked her to marry me. She said no. A year later, I asked her again, and she still said no. Two weeks ago. She said maybe. Tonight, I stand before you with a yes.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

Well, then that's when at the end, when she's the one that has to ask for forgiveness, is kind of like the power really shifts in the relationship because of that anecdote, we can really tell that he wants to get married more than she than she does. He's sort of like going along for the ride.

Ron 23:46

Do you think she's marrying him to force herself forward in life? I took her being at the cemetery as look, I'm moving on, I'm saying goodbye. And then the next scene is the engagement party where we're learning that she was pretty much worn down by Joseph. Is she trying to force herself forward even though she may not be fully ready? I think so.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

And you could also make a case for it's it's her family pushing her the way. The the incredible Lauren Bacall, which is kind of like crazy that Lauren Bacall is in this movie, playing playing her mother. She does the few scenes that she gets comes of as a mother that's sort of like you have to keep going and move forward. Um, there's that scene at the hospital where she's pushing her to like go ask for forgiveness and let bygones be bygones and whatnot. So I do think that she's forcing herself to overcome the grief, even if it's clearly only on the surface, clearly that grief is still consuming her. But again, I go back to the class thing. It's more interesting to me because she's not doing it because it's like I'm gonna lose the house and I have to marry this man to keep my house. I'm gonna have to marry this man because otherwise I will lose my status. That clearly is not a problem here. Like her family, they're they're actually living at her family's home with the mom. So, and so clearly it's not a thing of like I need this for any survival or financial stability. I'm doing this because solely for emotional reasons. And again, I think that's I don't know if he intended the, you know, he that was the intent from Blazer, but it does give the film a different kind of connotation when the motivation is not survival finances, is really clearly just an emotional kind of uh decision on her part, or maybe influenced by the family to to marry this man and move forward.

Ron 25:28

Lauren McCall has my favorite line in the film is when they are in the hospital and she says maybe and they're sitting there quietly and they're looking at the newborn. And she says, Maybe that's John. I was like, oh, that's brutal. Why would you say that? It's like it's not a nice thing to say because she's clearly unraveling at that point in the film. But I actually did like of all the parts of the film that are very serious, I actually did laugh out loud when she said, Maybe that's Sean.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

Yeah, it's very sort of like piercing. And again, it's only a line of dialogue, but that reveals to you that this woman thinks that her daughter is crazy for believing this thing, that it's like that kind of really shows what her position her position in this situation is. It's very economical, but that sarcasm, that cutting remark really shows who she is and that relationship. Because then she makes that remark, but then she goes, like, you should go to Joseph and you should try and just not apologize, but like give giving her solutions in a sense, you know.

Ron 26:19

Yeah, I think Nicole Kidman said in that Charlie Rhodes interview that acting with Lauren McCall and they got into the characters. She mentioned that her mother's just trying to control her life. Her mother's trying to call the shots. But then I thought, yeah, but you think that this 10-year-old boy is your husband. Maybe your mother, maybe you should listen to her this time that you need to get over this and move on.

SPEAKER_02 26:37

But but here is easy for me to say exactly because I'm like presented. I I thought about this, like presented with the evidence that she's being presented with. Would I not believe that a debt relative is has come back in the body of another person, whether that's a child or someone else, if I was presented with that evidence and I had gone through quote unquote every channel that I thought possible to sort of deny or debunk the allegations, and I was still convinced. It's sort of it works because it's this chamber thing, but at the same time, they are trying to prove him wrong. It's not like this buy it at face value. The kind of plot of the movie is them convincing themselves, convincing her that or convincing him or uh you know, forcing him to sort of uh kind of fess up and be like, Yeah, I'm lying. So it's not like they believe him right away. This family really wants to disprove his claim, and also again, I think that's where the class element comes back in because there is there's clearly a point that the child lives with a uh a family that's doing definitely not anywhere close as good as Nicole Kidman's character's family. Even the father has a line when he says, like, these are wealthy people.

Ron 27:43

Yeah, he said they're rich, that's all I know about them. That's that's it. Well, that's played by Ted Levine, plays young Sean's dad, and he's it's like he sneaks in there and steals a couple scenes, and he does that's that's the one thing he says. They're rich, that's all I know.

SPEAKER_02 27:55

Yeah, and also this kid has to take the train to get home. He doesn't live in the same part of the town that his wealthy family does. He goes to school somewhere else. He has to, there's a moment when they're like eating ice cream and he's like, That's my bus. He has to catch his bus. There's no private driver here. So all these things, and also, even though they never say it, I always thought that part of the skepticism of this family is like, well, this kid and his mom want money. There's something here that they want money from us. They never say it, but that to me is implicit in in their distrust of this child. Like, because why why else would he be doing this if they have no connection to him, right?

Ron 28:29

I think those are great observations. I don't know what would a kid be doing if they weren't waiting for their father giving a music lesson upstairs in this Manhattan apartment. They might be the ones taking the music lessons, for all I for all I know. Instead, his dad is the one giving the lessons. So I think those are those are great observations. And he's sitting in the lobby. We don't know why he's sitting in the lobby yet, and he sees Clara, played by Anne Haish, and Clifford, played by Peter Stormari. Clara says that she forgot a ribbon, and she goes across the street to what I assume is Central Park. We see it a few times, it looks a lot like Central Parks, and she buries a gift that she was going to bring. And Sean, played by Cameron Bright, who is just amazing for a child actor. And he follows her. How much does Glazer expect us to catch on our first watch when he's following Clara, who's burying something? Because a few minutes later, I kind of forget. I'm not really sure what's going on.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

I I remember like even watching it again, I was like, I mean, I knew that that what the sort of uh twist was, but yeah, I you were like, why is she burying this gift? Like it's so and then she goes and buys another gift. But also, like in the in the in the beginning, you see him following her, but you don't see him unwrapping the gift or even finding the gift up until much, much later when the revelation comes. And so yeah, I think that it's very smart to plan that there and not mention it for the next hour uh and then come back to it and be that aha moment for for the audience to reveal what that box contained and why she didn't ultimately give it to her. But yeah, that the actress who plays Claire, she's so good, especially in later on in the film when Keno reveals her true identity and the motivation she had for that give. Uh, there's something really menacing about her when she's talking to Sean.

Ron 30:15

Yeah. I just had to make a note because you said something about sharp dialogue, and I had to make sure I wrote down something I remembered there when we get to that point with Anne Hace's character, who is really, really good. Um Anna's mother, Eleanor, played by Lauren McCall, we mentioned her earlier, is having a birthday party. This is beautiful cinematography as well, with the birthday cake and all of those candles lighting Nicole Kidman's face. And Sean young Sean just kind of sneaks his way in. He was waiting outside, told this older couple that's there to celebrate. I'm here to see Anna, whatever, he sneaks in. And the really interesting choice by Glazer here because the the camera is just facing the entire family, looking off screen, where presumably Sean is standing, and it never moves away from the family. We get to see their reaction only. Usually you would get the two shot, you'd get the the Sean's perspective, family perspective looking at Sean. We don't get that at all. We get Sean saying, I'm here to see Anna, and everyone just quizzically looking at this child. What do you make of that choice? Or what does something like that do to a scene?

SPEAKER_02 31:13

You know, it makes me think that because this scene that you're that we're talking about, it's sort of the day after, or is after the day initial party where the gift was supposed to be given. And so I'm thinking, has Sean the kid, has he seen Anna before because he's hanged around this building, or is this the first, or is this the first time he's seen her? You know, because he knows the name from I don't know if this we're spoiling it, but like there's a reason why he knows her name, but has he ever actually seen her? Maybe because he's hanged out in this building with his father, but if he's seen her, did he know her name at all? Or is this the first time that he's actually seen her? So knowing now what we know after you watch the film, thinking about this thing again, I'm wondering like if that's the first that the first time that this character's seeing her, and does he even know who he's looking for when he walks into that room, you know, with that family? Because you know, he knows the name because he's read the name, he knows the name, but he yeah, we would there's no way for us to know whether he's familiar with how she looks like or not. And so it's an interesting sort of encounter that it almost to me seems like he's testing the waters and be like, I'm here to see Anna so they can point him to who Anna is because he might not even know what she looks like.

Ron 32:22

That's a great point. Didn't even think of it. You're right. We don't get his perspective, we don't know where he's looking. He could be looking at any of the women in that room. We we talked about Bacall a little bit. What does having someone like her in her presence ultimately in a small supporting role, what does that add to a film like this, where it is very still, it's relatively quiet, minus the score and the sharp dialogue. But what does adding someone like Bacall in her presence do uh to a film like this?

SPEAKER_02 32:48

I mean, I think that from an audience perspective, it's like it is sort of like, oh wow, Lauren Bacall chose to be in this movie. There's a legitimacy, sort of like a kind of uh inherent kind of interest when you know that this kind of reviewer actress is in this by all accounts strange our house movie. It's like, what was it about this movie that she was like, sure, I'll be in in this thing, and what one of my one of my final roles will be in this movie. And I also wonder what that does for the actors, you know, like having a legend like that playing the matrix of this family. I'm sure the dynamic becomes a little bit closer to what the characters are experiencing, that this woman does have a certain power over the family, and maybe having Lauren Bacon set, it's like it shifts kind of how the other actors behave because you're this might be your one for I mean, that for all of her might have been the only time, the only chance to work with her. So yeah, I think it's so interesting. I uh I I want to know if she ever talked about this movie and said anything about why she would take a small role in this film. What was it that enticed her to play this part?

Ron 33:50

Yeah, it's gonna have to be some research after the fact. I'm not sure. I know she worked with Nicole Kidman before. This is their second collaboration. I actually don't even know what the first one was, but I know this is their second collaboration, so maybe that had something to do with it. Just a hypothesis. I'm not really sure.

SPEAKER_02 34:02

That could be it, because you know, I feel like that actually that actually might be it. If she'd worked with Nicole Kidman before, that feels like perhaps the only reason she would do or the only connection. Like, I don't know if Jonathan Glazer had that pool at that moment after Sexy Beast. I mean, Sexy Beast did get an Oscar nomination, so but I don't know if that's enough for someone like Lauren Bacall to want to make a movie. So maybe it was sort of like a favor, like she enjoyed Nicole Kidman perhaps and was like, sure, I'll play your mom in this thing. That might actually seem that seems more likely than any other reason for her to be in this.

Ron 34:31

So she goes with young Sean to the kitchen, I think. And that's when Sean says that he is Sean, her husband, and she would make a mistake marrying Joseph.

SPEAKER_04 34:41

You want me? Is that what you're saying? You're my wife. We're married? You you're telling me that we got married at some point in time. Yes. I'm getting married to Joseph. He's a little bit older than you. We have a little bit more in common. But the timing was a little bit different. Who knows? Maybe you're a handsome little boy, but I'm getting married to someone else. It's me. Sean.

Ron 35:16

I don't know what the kid's motivation is here at this point. Like you said, maybe it's a money thing, but then at the end you're like, well, maybe he really thought he was Sean, like he had his own bout with psychosis there for a small amount of time. I'm not sure what his uh motivation is at this point. But where did you I maybe I shouldn't ask where you settled on that by the end? But uh I actually wanted to workshop something with you because I I was thinking about the stages of grief. And with this, so stages being anger, denial, bargaining, and depression and acceptance. When he first mentions this, she does get angry with him. She actually grabs him by the arm and and gets him out of the apartment. Then she comes back inside and she sits with her sister and they laugh it off and say that can't be true. So that I took that as well, is that denial? So I thought maybe we got the I don't know where if I this is like sometimes I go way too deep and like I don't know if this is right or not.

SPEAKER_02 36:06

I I think up to this point she doesn't believe it. I I can tell you exactly, you know, we know exactly when she does believe it, right? Yes, when he faints. When he feigns, that's when she really believes that I think like when she's laughing it up, when the first time he says that, she's like, This is just a dumb kid, like I don't know how he finds that, or like, you know, because also she never really another interesting thing is that she never creates any sort of like theories or possibilities. She never says, like, my ex-boyfriend or my enemy could be planting this, or there's someone in my past that might be trying to hurt me, or she never throws out any possible culprits for this happening, and so she just dismisses it with us thinking about like where how does he know any of this information, who's feeding him this information, or whatnot. But I will say that where I kind of landed on Sean, it is that he has, I don't know if it's a mental breakdown, or but I do think that in my mind, what I think is that he found the letters, the information, and read it, and it's about a person with the same name. To me, it's almost like he felt that it was serendipitous that he would find that information about a man with the same name. And so I do think that he does believe that he is this man in his child's mind. He does believe that he has that he was meant to find that information about a man that with the same name. I think that's what it is. The kind of serendipitous nature of how he comes about learning about Anna and Sean's relationship is perhaps what sort of convinces him that he is Sean. But then again, this is all me kind of digging into what's there because there's no sort of clear answer. But I'm like, if I was a child and I was like this person, why am I finding these letters? Was I meant did someone leave this here for me? Was I meant to find this information about a person who has the same name as me? And this woman lives here because clearly there's an address. So it's like, I don't know, maybe all these things led him to it was like kind of like a uh what is it, confirmation bias or whatever that like all the yeah you're you believe something and then all the clues are sort of like leading you to to be convinced that this is what's happening.

Ron 38:02

Right, you force the pieces to fit based on what's in front of you. Let's talk about that collapse because they Sean leaves Anna a note saying it it's it's kind of funny. It's like clearly a child's handwriting that says, Don't marry Joseph. And she shares it with her family eventually. She doesn't open it till she gets to work, she shares with her family that he's claiming to be her Sean. That's when Joseph calls down to the doorman and says he wants to know who this kid is. Well, of course, Sean answers. That's another serendipitous moment. Sean answers the phone, and Joseph goes to confront the boy with his father, who's in the building giving a music lesson of some kind, played by Ted Levine, and young Sean refuses to say he will leave Anna alone. You mentioned it earlier, he says, I can't, right? And as Anna and Joseph walk away, the boy drops to his knees, collapses. What is it about that collapse that clicks in her brain that tells her that this is my Sean reincarnated in this child?

SPEAKER_02 38:54

It's that line of dog of I can't, and when she gives him the ultimatum of like really kind of sternly asks to leave her alone. Yeah, she says you're hurting me, you know, that you're hurting me. He collapses, and it's almost like his soul leaves his body, or like he cannot handle the fact that she's banished him or whatnot. But to me, really, what's it's the scene after that really cooks the whole thing when she's at the opera or whatever performance they're watching, and we have that shot of Nicole Kidman for I don't know, maybe one or two minutes, just her face. Everything that happens on that face to me is really the moment that brings her to the other side.

Ron 39:32

Yeah, so they're hustling, they're on their way to an opera house of some kind.

SPEAKER_02 39:35

I'm not sure exactly what the show another wealthy people kind of rich people activities, you know.

Ron 39:42

So my last episode was with uh Gearish Shambu. I don't know if you know Gearish, and we talked about La Ceremonie, which is all about class. I mean, that is just the separation of class. And I was not expecting to talk about class with you today, so that's really interesting. But they do hustle to their seats at this rich people activity of the opera house.

SPEAKER_02 39:58

And there's not it's not a casual performance, he's wearing a tux, and she's in a so it's not it's not like music or art performance are only for the wealthy, but this is clearly like a like a rich people-only event by the where they're dressed instead of what everyone else is wearing.

Ron 40:13

Yes, I would have to rent something to probably go to the so that's noted. They hustled to their seats, they're a little late because they had to deal with child claiming that he's a reincarnation of someone's fiance's husband. And there's a the long shot of of Kidman's face at the concert. I learned that this was actually a dolly shot from further up in a slow zoom in on them, which is really cool. I thought it was a crane shot at first, but it's actually a dolly, which is really cool. And is this the shot you remember? Like, is this the thing that sticks with you? Because her for sure. We stare at this woman who is clearly broken. I mean, she is on the verge of tears. Joseph even leans over and tries to talk to her a couple times, and she like snaps out of whatever days that she's in a few times. Her butt hits the seat at 27 minutes, 27 seconds, and we don't cut to a new scene until 29 minutes, 26 seconds. So we just slow, and even the criterion cover is just it's it's just her face. Is this the the shot that you remember that is kind of sticks with you after the fact?

SPEAKER_02 41:08

For sure. Yeah, I think that is the shot for me just because she sits down and there's clearly distress, but there's a moment in those two minutes right before Joseph kind of like taps her that she's starting to smile. There's sort of like a transition for her, goes from like distress and sort of like what the fuck is happening, to it could this be, or the sort of the I so there's a sort of like a moment of joy or like a glimpse of like her sort of like kind of thinking that could this be and what the what does that mean? You know, do I get this this person that I love back? And then she snaps out of it because Joseph like taps on the shoulder or like says something in her ear, and then she kind of falls back into dispel. So there is sort of like a modulation to that that performance. It's not just two minutes of us staring at her face, there is something happening on her face, and by the time that it ends, I do feel like I at least get the sense that she's convinced that that is the moment she's turned the page and that she's sort of like all in into believing this child, even though there are more trials to come. I think that at that moment she was already convinced that that child is her husband.

Ron 42:11

I appreciate when a director trusts the audience because and I say that because you're someone who writes about film for a living, you watch a shitload of film, I'm sure. And there's so much like quick cutting to keep your attention at times in a lot of films that get put out today. But Glazer trusts us to sit with this woman as she's going through the full gamut of emotions and like trusts us to see that and sit there with her and feel maybe what she is also feeling through that. Because it'd be easy to have her sit there, zoom in, she's upset, cut next scene. But he doesn't do that. He forces us to sit there with it.

SPEAKER_02 42:47

But it's also brilliant writing because of where he chooses this scene to happen. There is built thing kind of there's built-in uh music in this in this scene. We hear the performance that they're there for, or at least I believe that what we live hearing is not score, but is the performance that they're there for. Right, right. And then it's also the situation is it's kind of like being alone in a room full of strangers, it's looking ahead, everyone's looking ahead. Like, I don't know if this scene would work the same if she wasn't sitting at a at a performance where she could really be in her head and not, you know, she's not in a room, she's not in the middle of the street. There's something particular about this where this happens that I think really adds to that kind that shot as you know happening. Because clearly it all it also tells us that she does not care at all about where she is, who she's with, she's in another place. So yeah, I do think that that's also great writing. Like, I don't know if this this scene would work as well if she wasn't at this performance.

Ron 43:43

100% agree. Sean leaves a message on the phone. And now I'm saying this and I'm thinking, oh yeah, they're gonna go like the next scene is Sean leaving this message, and then Anna having dinner at this very posh fine dining restaurant, is what it looks like. So damn, now you got me thinking in terms of class. And Sean says in his message meet me at the park. You'll know where. There's something morbid about meet me at the park, you know where, you know, where your husband killed over and died and your life changed forever.

SPEAKER_04 44:07

This is a game. You think this is funny? No.

SPEAKER_06 44:13

What if Bob comes to my house and tests me? How do you know Bob? He was my brother-in-law. If he asks me some questions and I get them right, will you believe me? Will you believe me?

Ron 44:36

What does that tell us about Anna at this point that she shows up? Maybe an obvious question, but curious.

SPEAKER_02 44:42

Yes, but I also I think that's one of the moments that laser sort of make us wonder whether he could be or not. Because if you think about it, how does he know where he died? Did he, I guess, did he look it up? Like, where did he find out? Because that would not be the letters. Because the letters were written when he was alive. And so how did he know that that's the place where he died? Because I'm like, you know, you gotta think about this is before the internet, even if he knew his name, like, I mean, it's not before the internet, but like I don't know if this child is Googling the New York Times and finding out the of the obituary of this wealthy man. No, I'm thinking about how could he possibly know the exact place where he died? If if if we assume if it were working from the premise that once you see the film, that everything he knows about this man and this relationship comes from the letters, then how does he know this piece of the puzzle? Who could have told them? Is it the the the doorman at the at the building that might have you know be like, oh, her husband died in Central Park? But will the doorman know the exact bridge or the exact place in the park where he put it happened? You know, so I feel like not that there should be an answer, but I'm like, this is these are the things that like sort of like make you wonder, is it all just simply explained by the letters?

Ron 45:53

Is there something else? Is I don't think it is because there's another there's another part where he knows who didn't tell Anna there wasn't on a Santa Claus. Why why would that have been in a love letter to from Anna to her husband? That's another one where I th and he doesn't know he doesn't know that woman's name. He's never met that woman. He even says, I don't know your name. And then later in the conversation, he says, Yeah, you're the how the hell did he know who that was? Is he deducing it as a 10-year-old somehow? How does he know? So that's another one that I thought. That one stands out as odd. I don't know why that would be in a letter either.

SPEAKER_02 46:20

Yeah, it's it's kind of a very specific piece of information.

Ron 46:22

Anna sends her brother, who is a doctor. He says, I'm just a regular doctor, which makes me laugh too, because it's like, you know, that's so much work to become a doctor. Don't downplay, I'm just a I'm not, he says, I'm not a psychiatrist, I'm just a regular doctor. And he goes to Sean's house and he's trying to break the spell by asking these these very intimate questions that only Anna's husband, Sean, old Sean, would know. And he passes the test, he's recording the conversation, he goes and plays the conversation for Anna and her family. I think this is where I really thought that this was this was actually Sean. Because then Sean comes to this apartment and with his mother, played by Kara Seymour, and he's walking around kind of like he owns the place. He even sits at his desk, he's answering questions. He sits at the desk saying, Hey, this is my desk. This is where I used to work. It's like, I don't know, how the hell would he know that's not a new desk that they've purchased from the last there's a lot of things there where I start to think, is this really him? Is this the is this the guy in this child's body?

SPEAKER_02 47:16

Going back to that scene with the the doctor brother, or what is it, brother, brother-in-law, whatever it is. I think it's her brother. Her brother.

Ron 47:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:25

That conversation gets very uh racy because that's when the tender child is like, oh, we had sex on the couch. On the green couch, right. And then we cut to Sean's mother in the kitchen who doesn't really react to his son saying these things, you know. And the only real thing we get from her at this point is when he's like, I'm not I'm not used to your son anymore, I'm not used to your child anymore. But also it makes me it makes me think about that the the family of this young Sean and like why is the mom allowing for this to happen? What what is what are her motivations for not intervening, or what is she thinking when this wealthy family is like sending this doctor to sort of interrogate his son, and his son is saying these very adult things that a 10-year-old should not even know about or be talking about, and she doesn't scold him. It almost tells me that she does believe that this young person is possessed by someone else, and she's kind of afraid of him that she does it, because you know, because I would think like she would want to be like, hey, don't say those things. So, like, but she doesn't intervene, and that to me sort of like almost like she's afraid of him because she's always like very willing to let him stay with his family, and there's that phone conversation, I'll tell him that I love him or something, but it's very passive. Like she kind of was just like, I'm afraid of this kid, I don't know what's happening here.

Ron 48:39

I think you're right though. I don't think I don't think Glazer necessarily wants you to have that full picture, he wants you to form your own opinion based on what he's he's putting in front of you because Anna goes to Clara and Clifford's place, and I love this scene on a second watch because I'm I was laser focused on Clara at this point.

SPEAKER_02 48:59

She's very affected. She acts to she acts like she's very affected, but you think that the first time you see it, or would when you don't know what comes next, you might think, oh, she's just feeling for Anna. She's really uh empathizing with her.

Ron 49:11

This is another reason why I don't want flashbacks in a film like this, because I don't want to know what Clara and Clifford's relationships look like either with Anna and and older Sean, original Sean. I don't know what to call Dead Sean. That's morbid too. But I I don't want to see what their relationship was like as two couples because I don't want any hints about the reveal of Clara and Sean having an affair. I don't want any of that. So she she recruits Clifford, who was the best man in their wedding, presumably older Sean's best friend, to to break that spell. How can I help?

SPEAKER_05 49:44

I don't want to fall in love again with Sean. You understand?

unknown 49:52

That's what's happening.

SPEAKER_05 49:55

And I need you to come and help me, and I need you to talk to him, and I need you to tell him to go away.

unknown 50:13

Because I can't do it.

Ron 50:15

What do you think is going through Clara's mind at this point? Is she putting it together of, no, that's not him, because he would have come to me first? Is that what she's thinking?

SPEAKER_02 50:23

Or she believes that Sean did come back and she feels betrayed because he did not come to her first. It's it's great, like, because at this point, she still doesn't know that this this child, I don't think she has put it together herself either. She she, you know, she buried those letters, but she did she see the boy opening those letters? Probably not. I don't think so because when she finally meets him, it's like the moment I saw you when you when you opened the door, that is the first moment he's ever seen him. So she doesn't even know. So I do think that there's a chance that she does believe that, like, well, maybe my son did come back in in the body of someone else, and why would he betray me and not come to me first? And that to me is also why she's sort of like so kind of vicious when when she finds out the truth, I guess, or when she reveals what the truth is, she feels very empowered that that she gets physical with him. Yeah. That in the that in the end she won, right? In the scene that you're talking about, when she's like very kind of emotional, maybe she did believe that Sean had come back and not come to her first.

Ron 51:20

So he stays overnight, and then there's the second overnight, which is maybe why the critics in Venice didn't like the film as much. I'm not sure. Anna does call Sean's mother and says, Sorry if you were worried, because she says, I'll pick him up from school and bring him home. And instead they get ice cream, which is something you would do with a child, not an adult man who you're Yeah. There's a yeah, he comes to the house originally, he asked for apple juice. Like there's a lot, I mean he's a child, so he's asking for apple juice. He's eating an ice cream someday. Anyway. And that was the scene where you said he points out that that's his boss. And she mentions how are you gonna take care of me? Which, okay, valid question, I guess, if she's trying to break this spell that he's on, but I don't think that's her motivation, because then her next question is, How are you gonna meet my needs? Now we all know what she's talking about. And apparently Young Shan does too, because he says, I know what you're talking about. And then the very That's exactly what he says, yes.

SPEAKER_02 52:08

Yeah, yeah. As I'm saying, the dialogue is very precise here. Because he doesn't he doesn't say, What do you mean? He says, Oh, I know what you're talking about.

Ron 52:16

I know what you're talking about. And then he is Mr. Casanova. She says, Have you ever have you ever slept with a girl? And it's like, Anna, he's 10 years old. I would hope not. What the hell?

SPEAKER_02 52:25

Exactly exactly, but clearly she is she doesn't, I think psychologically doesn't think she's speaking to a child, really. Like there's there's something there's like a weird in-between what she's clearly asking because he's in the body of a child, but she's asking questions that she knows she shouldn't be asking to a child. It's like a weird psychological thing that she's sort of like, you haven't done that, but at the same time, have you? You know, because aren't you an adult man?

Ron 52:49

And what does he say back to her? The ultimate, like he says, he says, you'd be the first. Well, that's a that's a pretty race supervisor film. Well, because the very next scene, she this is the this is the scene that people want to talk about. I want to talk about the opera house, but the scene that people that sticks for people when they I think originally panned the film is this scene where she is in, she is naked in a bathtub, and 10-year-old Sean comes in, he takes off all of his clothes and he gets in the bathtub with her. So I understand how this was received, but in your opinion, has the sentiment of what this scene actually means changed for maybe people discovering the film for the first time?

SPEAKER_02 53:27

I don't know. I I I I wonder if the people that are writing about the film now have a wider they've seen films that are far more provocative or more explicit or challenging than even this one is. I I will say that perhaps 20 something years ago, the people writing about films were mostly the internet what it is not what it is today. So the people that were writing about it were the folks that were writing for your USA Today, your TB guide, your people that are were thinking very much about a sort of like a wider audience. And so a scene like this is sort of like a a deal breaker or uh the the end of the conversation for a lot of people when you know when you're discussing a movie in this sort of like big newspapers or uh I guess what I'm trying to say is like now there's much more sort of like niche conversations that people have access to more things. Like I feel like people sort of like film literacy or the way that they interpret films and look at them has perhaps evolved or changed. Like this, I don't know if this I mean maybe this would still be a provocative today if a movie I don't know if a movie would do this today at all. But it's all sort of like what you bring into it and the implicit inappropriateness that we know is there because there's nothing like nothing happens other than them being together in in in the bathtub. And so we know it's inappropriate, we know it's there's an inherent provocation and danger to this scene that never goes beyond that. And I think that's what's sort of like uh when I when something like this happens, or even the scene with the ice cream, I'm thinking of like the actors' parents and sort of the conversations that Jonathan Glazer had had had to have with the parents of this young actor about the content of the scene, about even if he's not actually nude in the in the path of like the implication that he is and the dialogue that he has to say and the conversation he has to have with these adult actors. That to me is like how do you navigate that for that scene to exist that's so provocative and so challenging for a lot of people? Like, how do you even conceive it when you deal it with an actual child? So yeah, it's it's tricky. It's rescare for sure, and it's like and it's but I think the film for the film to be what it is, it needs to sort of cross that line a little bit to sort of like really, really get you to believe that this woman is willing to do that and she should know better, and whatever spell she's on there or whatever emotional thing she's on there is preventing her from seeing clearly that she should that that reason should be with her, like she should be the one saying this is not right.

Ron 55:51

Well, and Glazer screws with you too, because the scene right before that they're talking, she's asking him about if he's ever had sex, and then the very next scene he's taking his pants off in a bathroom, and she's in a bathtub, and in your head you're you're saying, can you just tell him to please stop and to get out? Like, come on, lady. Speak up.

SPEAKER_02 56:07

But also, like the the we we kind of are meant to believe that the only reason things don't go further is because she realizes that Joseph is at the door.

Ron 56:15

Yeah, what happens if he comes in and sees her in a bathtub with a 10-year-old?

SPEAKER_02 56:19

Well, I think he knows that they're there. They're they're in there. I think he's listening at the door. Or maybe that's the second scene in the bathtub. Maybe I'm thinking of the other one. But there's a there's one scene in the tub when Joseph is like at the door listening and she realizes that he's listening.

Ron 56:32

Well, he might be that he does come to the door at that point and he tries to open it and it's locked or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 56:37

And you could hear that he could hear their voices, you know. So it's it's a very like it, but again, it's it's like, why is she not stopping this? She truly believes that this is yeah, this is real.

Ron 56:49

This is the same evening, and we talked about the the the strings, the band that comes to to perform as like a I don't know, like a tryout or something. I don't know, for their wedding. And Sean is kicking the back of Joseph's chair, just like an annoying kid would, maybe, if you were at a concert. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 57:04

But the context is much more charged with it's almost like it's really very much like a masculinity thing of like, I'm taunting you because I am taking your woman in a sense. It's just kind of insane to say in the world. It's a crazy thing to say, but that is what is happening here, and that's how Joseph interprets it. That's why he reacts the way that he reacts.

Ron 57:23

He's not yeah, he blows up. He absolutely blows up. I mean, it's it's I was watching it again thinking, like, well, that's kind of like how I would expect, maybe. Like if someone who doesn't have complete control of their emotions or they've just hit their breaking point. The other family members of Anna have lived through this grief with her already, and Joseph's coming in the middle, so he's not really he hasn't lived that full cycle of grief with her. But is he the only one that reacts in a way that is sane?

SPEAKER_02 57:49

I was about to say that. I was about to say that. Like, he's the only one that's kind of like being like, What the fuck are you people doing letting this go so far? And that's after that bathtub scene that he probably heard them talk inside the bedroom, that he's like kind of you know, knowing that she's taking it too far, and now this kid is taunting him in a way that if the if the context wasn't there of what this means, it would just be a child being a child, and it'll be annoying. But there is is definitely charged with with something else, and that's why he not to justify the character, but he does lose his mind because he's like, What what is what are we doing here? Why is he child even here? You know, why is he?

Ron 58:24

He treats him solid move by him, too, to trap the boy in the room by shoving the piano. He shoves the piano into a doorway and forces Sean into another room, and he treats him like a child. He's spanks.

SPEAKER_02 58:33

He spanks exactly. I was gonna say that like he doesn't punch him, he spanks him because he knows that he's a child, and so he's definitely the only one that's interpreting the situation of like this is a kid that misbehaving, and you guys are like because yeah, no one else is like, what the fuck are we doing here? Why is this why is this kid spending time here? Like we don't know him from anywhere. He's not even a family friend, he's not he's not the child of our one of our employees. Like, there's no reason for this child to be here, and he's hanging around at the rehearsal for wedding then or whatnot. Yeah, he's he's here for the second sleepover in a row. So I guess as as as young people would say, like his crash out is valid, I guess, you know. He crush I'll buy that. His crash out is you know, is is reasonable in a sense not reasonable, understandable.

Ron 59:16

I I watched it and thought, well, I feel like this is totally justifiable, but whatever. Clifford shows up finally, and he's he's missed the party, he's missed the the ruckus. He opens the door to this very quiet apartment looking around, like, what the hell just happened here?

SPEAKER_02 59:29

Joseph has left already.

Ron 59:30

Yeah, yeah, Joseph's gone, he's packed up and gone. And Anna tells Clifford at this point, that's my he is Sean. That's my Sean. And that's when young Sean comes and hugs Clifford and goes away, and he Clifford looks at her and says, That is not Sean. But she's so entranced now that I feel like she wants to believe it so bad, or she wanted to believe it so bad that she ignores all the other signs that maybe this couldn't be true.

SPEAKER_02 59:54

And does does kids Sean know who Clifford is from the letters, or how does he know to hug him? Why does he know what the relationship is between between the Sean and him? I don't know. Process of elimination, someone he hasn't met yet, maybe but like to hug him in that way, that implies that implies that this is my best friend, you know, this is someone that will protect me, and like it's you know, because he clearly has never seen him before. So why is he running to him and hugging him? Why and also why would Clifford be mentioned in those love letters? Like, that's another one that I'm like, is did he overhear? How is he so you know, the reaction is hugging him and not just saying hi or like testing the waters is like a a full recognition of someone that will protect him and be on his side. So yeah, but it's another one.

Ron 1:00:36

Let's change the hot take and say the new hot take is that young Sean is Sean. He really is Sean. Well, maybe this and Clara forgets something, quote unquote, again. She comes to the door and says, My hands are dirty. And this is the note I made earlier when you said precise dialogue, because when she shows it to the door, shows her hands, it says, My hands are dirty, where's the restroom? You know, okay, wait, whatever she buried at the beginning of the film. She went looking for it. Yeah, that's the point where it like jogs your memory of like, oh yeah, she did go bury something earlier. And then she pulls Sean into the restroom. And on my first watch, I thought something very like this is so strange because she writes her new address on Sean's arm or hand or something, and said, and then he says, Don't tell Anna. So I was like, What the hell's going on here? Like, I didn't know what to think. I kind of thought, is this young Sean just a hustler? Is he is he is he hustling everybody? Like, what is going on here?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:28

Is he getting money from is she she or like is she the one paying him to do this? Because that could have been also a possibility. Like, is is Claire paying him to hurt Anna to do this to hurt her to sort of like get back at her?

Ron 1:01:40

And Sean does go to Clara's house. This is where we get a big confession that we find out that Clara was having an affair with Sean, and what she buried that young Sean found were unopened love letters that Anna sent to her husband. And her husband had given them to Clara as a sign of how he felt about her, that he he loves her more, I guess. Look how much I love you. I won't even open these love letters.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:06

When you opened the door for me yesterday, I knew you weren't Sean. Who are you? I thought you said you were Sean. I'm your lover.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:25

Anna's my lover.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:26

I'm your lover. Anna's your wife.

Ron 1:02:32

What the hell is she doing giving those letters to Anna on a in an engagement party? Yeah, that's perverse. That's really when you're like it's uh she takes it back, she doesn't do it, but you know it's What is she thinking though? She's gonna destroy her marriage, she's gonna destroy Anna all over again. I mean, she ends up doing it inadvertently by the way.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:48

Well, I think it's because there's to me, it's like she hates Anna because Anna being the wife can publicly grieve Sean. She can say that she misses him, and like Claire has to have her grieving process hidden away because she was having an affair. She cannot express how she felt about Sean. Uh, it would be weird for Claire to show up at Sean's grave and be crying there because she was only the girlfriend of his best friend, you know. Like, so I think to me that's like it's that Anna, this this pain that they share, Anna is a legitimate wife, so she can suffer and express and visit the grave, and she was not the legitimate spouse, and so she has to to hide it. And uh it's perverse, and it's kind of it's horrific that she would do this to Anna, but I think that's the motivation that that even after that Anna is the legitimate spouse and not her.

Ron 1:03:39

It's gonna end her marriage too. I mean, it's not there's no way that suffer doesn't find out. So she's she's ending her marriage.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:45

She's I don't know, maybe maybe if Anna did get those from Clara, she'd feel okay to move on with but she never gets them, which is kind of also like a a terrifying, horrifying thing of this movie that we know more than she does, and it's like like you said, could be beneficial for her to know the truth, you know, because yeah, we'll get to the ending, but the ending is not blessing for Anna.

Ron 1:04:06

So the line I love so much the essays that you and other many others have written for Criterion. And Olivia Lang wrote this one, and there's a quote that I pulled out that really struck me. And she wrote, She is she, meaning Anna, is enthralled to fantasy twice over, and that she's fallen in love with a false reincarnation of someone who is actively betraying her. So, what does it mean to watch Anna grieve a man so completely knowing what we now know at this point?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:33

Yes. It's even more painful because we know that he doesn't deserve it in a way, like she does he doesn't deserve the kind of emotional mental distress that she's undergoing because of his death. Because clearly he was all the proof that there is more in love with Claire and putting his energy there. And so, yeah, it it's devastating for a character like Anna to never find out. So I don't know what the what what does what the the best course of action for her would be like living as she stays, not knowing or or having the truth.

Ron 1:05:06

I'm not sure what I would want to know because Sean, I I think, well, this is just my opinion, and I wonder if you share it. Does young Sean represent a version of her Sean that actually never existed? This idealized her husband.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:18

Absolutely, because all he knows about the real Sean is what Anna writes in those letters, which is already an idealized version of him, and that's why I guess the honorable thing that the kid Sean does is it breaks the spell because if I was really Sean, I wouldn't do this to you. And so if I was really this man that that you write about in your letters, I wouldn't have betrayed you like this.

Ron 1:05:41

So he doesn't I cannot tell Anna that though. Like when she she he's hiding in a tree in Central Park and he runs to the apartment. Not this is the second time he's in the bathtub, and this is when before he can even get it out, she has what I would call the bargaining portion of the grief process when she says we can run away. Together in 11 years when you're 21, we can get married. It's like, holy shit.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:03

Which is what this which is what turns her into like a very not a villain, but a character that is like she has lost all sense of what's morally or legally appropriate or in the sort of like kidnap him or something. She's gonna run away with a 10-year-old and hide for 11 years and or whatever to 13 and then married him and presumably establish a very uh uh an incredibly inappropriate relationship with a 10-year-old. Also, like is she like leaving her life behind in wealth? Are they like just the the pro the the proposition of what she's implying is so life-shattering for everyone around them and like so insane that really cements the notion that she has lost herself, that she is yeah.

Ron 1:06:46

It's it's it's a cruel moment because we're watching now Anna. We watched her in grief. Like the movie is really truly about grief and how people deal with like what would you do if someone you loved came back to the street.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:59

But also Jong Chun saves it saves her in that moment, right? Because if that this notion that he's such a I guess, I don't know, I don't want to say pure, but like that he's this righteous y young man that is like, because I know that he betrayed you, I cannot possibly him, so I'm gonna leave your life. Because he could have also been like, I don't care, I wanna I'm a child and I wanna be with this woman, and she says that we're running away together and I'm gonna go. And it would be her fault because she's the adult. And it's like, but he's in a sense, he also acts more like an adult in that moment that than she does, you know, because it's right. I'm gonna live your life, and this is this is what it ends.

Ron 1:07:36

Yeah, Glazer forces us to watch this woman lose her husband a second time because she she really thought it was him, and it's like he's gone again, like I've lost him now twice. And then Anna hate to say grovels, but she kind of does, like you know, like a dog with its tail between its legs go back to Joseph and gets him back. They do decide to get married, and here we're in our our final scene. What's really interesting is is Glazer tells us that it's May. I'm like, it looks like gloomy as hell, yeah. Gloomy as hell. Like it's the color is so like it's not a bright and happy day in May.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:07

But I think I she was I would not I would not like it to be a happy day. It feels like it shouldn't be. But we get the voiceover of a new letter that he writes to her, which is kind of insane too.

Ron 1:08:18

Yeah, he says that uh the doctors don't know what was wrong with me, but I I it yeah, it's just absolutely heartbreaking. It's it's like the film ends with Anna walking into what I guess is the ocean, and Joseph chasing her down and and holding her, and she is just beside herself. It's like she's she's escaped this one constructed world into this other that maybe her family has pushed her into. I'm not convinced that she really loves Joseph. Maybe she does, but maybe she's not fully over Sean. What what do you think Glazer wants us to take away?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:49

Yeah, I don't think she's over. I think she's still unraveling in in the grief that's just been sort of rekindled by the whole experience with this child. And because she doesn't get quote unquote closure, because he she doesn't know about this letter, she doesn't know what explanation is for this boy knowing all this information, then she's adrift. And I think that the only feeling that adrift, the only sort of like anchor she can find is to sort of like return to the normalcy of the you know the wealthy life that she knows, and that means doing what her family wants it to do, going back to Joseph, getting married, and so yeah, it's it's devastating for for her character. And Nicole Kidman clearly communicates that the kind of horror that she's going through.

Ron 1:09:31

I say I had uh depression at the wedding as my other stage of grief, and the last stage of grief being acceptance, I think we never get. So I I think if you start with when he says, I'm Sean, and work your way through, you hit all the stages of grief except for the final. We never get to see her actually accept because she never really she doesn't learn the truth. Is this Sean really her Sean? But he b I don't know. Like we we never get to see her accept the fact that she's lost this again idealized version of Sean, who really wasn't who she thought that he was. So it's incredibly heartbreaking to end the film. So we we close every episode and the guest gets to give their answer, kind of summing up why this film. So why birth? Why birth in the Criterion Collection?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:16

I think Berth deserves to be in the Criterion Collection because it captures an uncanny feeling that relates to grief, to uh the hope that there is something after, the hope that we could get more time with someone that that we love, and it does so in a very enigmatic, unnerving way, helped by the score, the cinematography, and of course Nicole Kidman's and Cameron Bright's performance, particularly Cameron Bright, I feel like that's a child performance that makes or break the movie. There's something sort of like not it, it's it's not like an innocent child in a simplistic manner. It is a child, but there is a spora of maturity, of like of almost like not malice, but like he knows what he's doing. There's a sort of like he knows that he's he has the upper hand in every interaction he has with Nicole Kidman. There's a conviction to his performance that I think is very unsettling when when it comes from such a young person, and so I think that really elevates the film. And of course, it only works because Nicole Kidman's reactions are so visceral uh throughout the film. There is kind of on her face the breakdown of this character. So yeah, so I think that it deserves to be in the criterion collection because it's uh it's a movie that's so specific and so precise about the emotions that are hard to put into words, and then when you watch the movie, you understand something that might not be easy to describe to someone else, and so I think that's incredibly powerful. And also the fact that it's that it collected so many negative reviews when it was first released, and now it's in the criterion, it's sort of a a validation that like the the consensus, the critical consensus when a movie comes out is not sort of the NLB all of a movie's life that it really can be reappraised and can be observed uh in a new lens over the years, uh likely because uh a generation of millennials that probably saw this movie when they were too young uh have come to its defense and to hail it as the masterpiece that I think it is. And yeah, it's a it's a tone piece that's also about I think about class, about grief, about how grief exists in this kind of in the elite. And again, I go back a third time to Roger Eber's phrase about that. This movie captures how people in this wealthy people will react to this. That feels like such an excellent description of what this movie does and and the kind of rooms where it exists. So yeah, I'm a big big fan, and I was happy to get a chance to to talk about it because I've actually never written anything about this movie, which hopefully one day I'll get the chance. I think you should just write go ahead and write a second essay and send it in.

Ron 1:12:49

Thank you again to Carlos Aguilar for taking the time to speak with me about Berth. If you'd like to support the show for as little as $3 a month, you can do so by selecting the support the show link in the episode description. You can follow the podcast on Instagram for updates and check out whythisfilm.com for additional resources. Next time, I'll be joined by one of the world's leading authorities on Alfred Hitchcock, film scholar Sidney Gottlieb, to discuss the 39 steps. Thanks again for listening. Please be sure to follow, share, and keep an eye out for the next episode.