Begotten
E. Elias Merhige, USA, 1991, 78 min

The film heavily deals with religion and the biblical story of earth creation. But as Merhige revealed during Q&A sessions, its primary inspiration was a near death experience he had when he was 19, after a car crash. The film features no dialogue, but rather uses harsh and uncompromising images of human pain and suffering to tell its tale.

What ever this movie is very hard to understand, the film opens with a robed, profusely bleeding « God » (The Thanatos) disemboweling himself, with the act ultimately ending in his death. A woman, Mother Earth (The eros), emerges from his remains, arouses the body, and impregnates herself with his semen. Becoming pregnant, she wanders off into a vast and barren landscape. The pregnancy manifests in a fully grown man whom she leaves to his own devices.

The « Son of Earth » meets a group of faceless nomads who seize him with what is either a very long umbilical cord or a rope. The Son of Earth vomits organic pieces, and the nomads excitedly accept these as gifts. The nomads finally bring the man to a fire and burn him …

***

Din Of Celestial Birds (2006) by E. ELIAS MERHIGE (October 22, 2012)

Krzysztof Wodiczko: Projections
Derek May, Canada, 1991, 53 min 2 s

This full-length documentary examines the work of Krzysztof Wodiczko, an artist who has taken his art out of museums to project it onto the sides of buildings. The film explores Wodiczko’s philosophy of art as social contract and shows examples of his provocative work, which has lit up walls from London’s Trafalgar Square to Zion Square in Jerusalem.