Expert: 7devonapes - 12/5/2010

Question
I'm looking for the title/director of a  B&W film that starts with someone in a white robe? being murdered with a knife... then a Bald Jesus type figure crawls thru the desert being punished by various people for a long time... then he ends up with these monks? or druids? who cut him into pieces and ram  the chunks into tree stumps with poles and at the end of the film, the formerly desert earth springs into blossum with grass and flowers blooming. I keep thinking the title starts with D and is one word, and the director is named somthing like Maffrige? But I sure havent been able to find any  info on it. hope you can help.

Answer
Hi Martin,

Sounds like you could be looking for E. Elias Merhige's cult 1990 film "Begotten". A plot summary from wiki follows:

"The film opens with a robed, profusely bleeding "God" disemboweling himself, with the act ultimately ending in his death. A woman, Mother Earth, 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 convulsing 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.

"Mother Earth" encounters the resurrected man and comforts him. She seizes the man with a similar umbilical cord. The nomads appear and proceed to rape her. Son of Earth is left to mourn over the lifeless body. A group of characters appears, carry her off and dismember her, later returning for Son of Earth. After he, too, is dismembered, the group buries the remains, planting the parts into the crust of the earth. The burial site becomes lush with flowers. In a final coda, "Mother Earth" and "Son of Earth" are shown again, this time wandering away through a forest."

More info:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101420/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begotten
http://www.amazon.com/Begotten-Brian-Salzberg/dp/B0000541WJ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&q...

Here is the film's trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fadhsuINHfk

- I've not yet seen "Begotten" as such but have read quite a bit about it in the past. It's one of those infamous cult films people seem to love or hate (is it genuinely profound or merely a load of pretentious, arty nonsense?). Pity the DVD is so damn expensive to purchase...

You might also like the following films (if not already seen):

El Topo (1970)
The Holy Mountain (1973)
Eraserhead (1976)
Stalker (1979)
Tetsuo (1989)


All the best,
Ryan