The Baby of Mâcon

source: The Baby of Mâcon

The Baby of Mâcon

This is an astonishing Fiction-Within-Fiction exercise that ingeniously implicates the viewer in the appalling acts of violence on screen. Thus, it is one of the most visceral and sickening movies ever made, but of the highest moral and artistic integrity. Don't miss it. If you can handle it...

This film was in limited release but I saw it in Dallas through USA Film Festival screening. I asked a friend to go - she's as open to difficult material as anyone and she was pretty repulsed, although didn't get up and leave. Not being a film buff per se, I was mesmerized by the visual drama. I'm hooked by Greenaway's gutsy artful literate approach to hooking the audience. After the film I had trouble sleeping for a few days and I'm not sure I could see it again, but don't regret it. It's hard to articulate without a working knowledge of film making and depth of knowledge of all the literary and historical references, but the film hits you on so many levels at once, it's an emotional and mental feast, borderline overdose. You can always get up and walk out if it's too much but fascination and experiential high overcome the trauma of what's happening on the screen. A fabulous beautiful, riveting, difficult film. Not for the squeamish.

I'm a huge Peter Greenaway fan. My favorites are Drowning by Numbers, The Cook The Thief His Wife and Her Lover and Prosperos Books. I believe I've seen everything by him including all of The Falls. So I'm very familiar with his work. I was really looking forward to watching this movie and boy was I disappointed. I found it very boring, pretentious, silly and completely lacking in the incredible and bizarre cinematography that made all his other work so memorable. I kept watching to see the shocking part and even that was a let down. I would consider this his worst film (it used to be 91/2 Women). So if this is your first exposure to Greenaway, don't prevent it from watching others. You'll miss out on some beautiful, very memorable and fantastic films. I rate him right up there with Bergman, Godard, Fellini and even Orson Wells. Definitely watch his stuff but don't begin with this.

As all of Peter Greenaway's films, this one is a feast for the eyes. A beautifully shot and staged Grand Guignol horror, that is as certain to please some as it is to cause revulsion in others. It certainly won't give you an easy time of it, but if you're willing to ignore such things as plot and story you can enjoy some of the purest eye-candy ever filmed. I enjoyed it, but wouldn't recommend to my friends without a word of warning.

Probably the best Greenaway film. Ironically, the main reasons for this are the lacking of two of his trademarks; 1) monotonous music, and 2) the camera shooting a mile away from the action and actors (there was comparatively little of that this time around). This film alternates between captivating and boring, the latter being usually the case with sequences involving only music. Once again Greenaway includes extreme gore and brutality into his story. In fact, his films have more of that than 90% of "regular" horror films. In that sense, Greenaway is a horror-film director, but one who dresses his horror with style and elaborate sets. The scene towards the end where Julia Ormond gets raped by hundreds of men in a row is one of the most unforgettable scenes in movie history, through its sheer brutality.

This movie is about many different things at once, and is played out on several different levels at once. On the surface, the movie is about the setting up of a play about a historical event. Peter Greenaway lets the storyline switch between the play and the historical event, thereby breaking down the barrier between the movies play and the movies reality, and simultaneously breaking down the barrier between the movie and reality, making it near impossible to brush of the events as "Ah, it's just a movie". The way he does this is so skillful, that somebody should invent a Nobel price in directing and give it to him. :) This is a movie lovers movie. If you aren't a cineast and would rather see a guy with two machine guns killing people that spend an hour or two thinking, forget about it. It will only make you confused. And if you are a sensitive person, this movie might make you feel bad for days.

Peter Greenaway is one of the most unique directors at work in cinematic arthouse today.He made several truly original movies like "The Falls"(1980),"A Zed and Two Noughts"(1985),"The Pillow Book"(1997) etc."The Baby of Macon" is pretty demented with the scenes of cannibalism,incest,rape and gore.The film is difficult,challenging,brutal and darkly beautiful.A baby is born from a supposed virgin woman,so a chain of hysteria about divine intervention in the birth takes place.The scene when stunningly beautiful Julia Ormond is gang-raped is really hard to watch-it is not graphic,but her agonizing screams are quite convincing.Highly recommended if you want to see totally challenging piece of art.