Thanks so much for your extremely insightful and well-reasoned essay. I have been haunted by this film for 4 1/2 years and your analysis here has put to rest many of the questions I had about the picture.

I felt that a thorough look at the filmmaking would yield better answers to the question of Sean’s identity/meaning and your writing has proven that to be the case. I think ‘Birth’ is a first-rate movie not only formally (that score, those images), but also has a very tight, but complex reasoning, that you have helped make clear for me.

I still feel that the delicacy of feeling and motive(s) contained in the film were—and will be—readily dismissed by an audience that likes its answers quick and easy.

I loved your thoughts.
Matthew

Thank you very much for your thoughtful discussion of this extraordinary film. I saw it in the theater and then rented it a couple of years later, and finally bought it.

Few films have the emotional resonance to me that that film has–and I’m still trying to figure it out. Your interpretations are quite remarkable and seem to really make sense. I also appreciate your discussion of Stanley Kubrick in all of this, as Stanley has always been been a favorite director (and I still him…perhaps a 9 year old boy will appear to me and tell me he’s Stanley–but then, I’m not replacing him with another director–although Glazer could be a candidate!).

This film is the most psychologically observant film I have seen for so long. I sadly believe that psychology of any depth is missing from current films–even from the so-called prestige or independent ones.

Thanks again.

Paul