Birth/Rebirth is a morally corrupt film and I love it. Every single person in the movie has a vague if not non-existent grasp of medical ethics and we’re asked to go along with it. It’s dark, it’s meaty, it’s unsettling, and anyone who is pregnant, has ever been pregnant, might become pregnant, or might get someone pregnant might want to steer clear. Unless you like to be challenged by a movie with an ethical dark side.
It’s about a friendly nurse who loses her child and a less-friendly doctor who steals the corpse to raise the dead (in the back bedroom of her apartment). The two women wind up working together.
This is not your typical horror movie. It isn’t the scariest nor the fastest paced, but it’s interesting and challenging. It deals in Frankenstein themes but in a thoughtful, non-exploitative way (which doesn’t mean it’s not sinewy and meaty… it most certainly is). I’d say it’s elevated horror but it doesn’t have the tone and pacing that usually implies.
Ethics go wildly out the window in some pretty disturbing ways. Without going into specifics, the serum needed for the experiments is recovered from viable human pregnancies. That shudder you feel are medical ethics splintering and shattering.
Credit – major credit – to the two leads. Judy Reyes as the nurse and mother is warm and compassionate. She’s the heart of the movie… at least for awhile. Marin Ireland has the tougher role as a borderline autistic doctor without a firm grasp of right and wrong. She’s cold, distant, and off-putting but also driven and smart.
The whole film is smart but the end is brilliant. It cleverly and cruelly manipulates our understanding of what’s about to happen and then does it. I gave an audible gasp and later muttered, “oh no” at these events… I was disturbed, disappointed, and distressed. I’m not the most demonstrable movie-goer so any kind of reaction like that means the movie was working me over hard.
This is a damn good – but damn hard – film to watch. You might not like it due to its ethics and implications. The film asks you to go along with someone who is ultimately a mad scientist… or maybe it doesn’t. It never really takes a stand. You’ll feel how you feel… and, for your sake as a conscionable human being, I hope you feel horrified.
Score: 90