Birth...Death!

Went for a double-bill last night, the Hollywood The Grudge remake and Kidman in and Bacall inBirth. Neither film was that great. The Grudge was competent with a few shock moments - I must confess to not having seen the original, but this seemed derivative of Amityville, Poltergeist, The Exorcist and - of course - Ring. Not sure that the story really amounted to much as it was just driven by the shock factor, but it was nice to see a Hollywood remake set in the original country and making relatively substantial use of subtitles.

Birth was much more disappointing right from the start. I'd watched the trailer and really liked the opening snow-running shot, but this was overlaid with the most inappropriate music in the film itself. I've been reading the comments on the Internet Movie Database which appear to be generally favourable, but I am in general disagreement. This is not an intelligent film: it seems to think that slow pans and zooms that then focus on a bland, emotionless face indicate some sort of profundity of thought. The content was - and I am not squeamish on this subject - distasteful, and really sexualised the young boy. I know this is a sweeping generalisation, but if the main character had not been everyone's darling, Nicole Kidman, or the genders in the roles had been changed, this film might have caused a real Mary Whitehouse style scandal. My only positive was the lighting and cinematography (apart from the close-ups which I put down to the direction!), but that's just not enough to sustain interest. Another stinker to add to the Kidman collection...