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Kali Thurber, A&E Editor

icole Kidman stars in Birth as

Anna, the endlessly mourning,

soon-to-be-remarried widow, who
becomes convinced that her late husband has
been reincarnated as a ten-year-old boy. The
film begins with a black screen and a male
voice (who is strangely never given a physical
role in the film) asking himself if he would
believe it if his wife died only to be replaced
by a little bird claiming to be her. This, I sup-
pose, is the underlying question of the entire
movie; however, the real question that was
reeling through my head was, “what happens
if a grown woman and a young boy truly fall
in love?”

Sean (played by a stern, yet comfortably
melancholic Cameron Bright) is the pre-teen
who calmly declares that he is, in fact, Anna’s
husband. Bright’s unmistakable acting ability
is astounding at times—particularly in the
controversial scene featuring the 40-some-
thing Anna, and the delicately youthful Sean,
naked in a bath together. He’s so convincing

as a man trapped in the body of a boy that
when Anna states that she’s falling in love
with him (because she believes him to be her
reincarnated husband) it seems more to por-
tray the beauty of love than perversion. But
the perverse element is still present, and that
alone is what really drives the film.

Many scenes are completely absent of dia-

10 | OUnEPPPeSs

 

 

logue, and concentrate solely on Anna while
she tries to come to terms with the fact that
her late husband is now a 10-year-old boy.
Though Kidman makes the most of these
scenes with immense emotion, several min-
utes of a close-up on someone’s face (no
matter how pretty) is boring and gives the
audience too much time to realize the faults in
the script. The failures are the typical ones
that plague almost all surreal movies—name-
ly, the ambiguous ending. Films that attempt
to work surrealistic elements into a realistic
plot always have ambiguous endings with no
real closure, simply because nobody has fig-
ured out a way to force an audience to believe
enough to accept a mote definite ending. It’s

 

sad, but true.

Aside from several drawn-out scenes of
Kidman’s face and the unfortunately uncer-
tain ending, Birth is an intriguing film that is
sure to make you ponder afterwards (be it
about premature sex or the possibility of
reincarnation).

    
    

 

Songs from

Brady Ehler,, OP Reviewer Guy

 

lliott Smith stabbed himself in
the heart 13 months ago. This
album is the last four years of
the singer-songwriter’s life. The album
begins with the lyrics, “last stop for a
resolution” as the gigantic sound-
ing “Coast to Coast” kick-starts
the album. The 15-song opus
continues with the sparsely
arranged “Let’s get Lost,” a
tragic song of love and loss.
The third song sounds like a
middle ground between the
two opening tracks.
This whole album feels like
a good summation of Smith’s
musical career. There are
sweeping epic climaxes, there are
quiet and dramatic personal
moments, and there is everything
in between. This album covers a
lot of sonic ground. Among my
favourite tracks is “Don’t go
down”—yet another song about
love. Elliott sticks to his main
themes in this album more ot less;
he writes about struggling with
drugs, depression, self-doubt,
and of course, the tragic loss of
love,
What really strikes me about
Songs from a Basement on a Hill is

Hovember § 17/2000