Begotten 1989

In a dilapidated shack, the robed and masked figure known as God Killing Himself ends his life in a brutal, self-inflicted act, disemboweling himself and leaving a stark, chilling image behind. From the remains, a woman in white emerges, stepping into the ritual aftermath with a calm intensity. She uses the dead man’s semen to impregnate herself, and time passes until she stands beside a coffin, visibly pregnant. She gives birth to a fully matured yet malformed man, who is abandoned in the wilderness to fend for himself.

The newborn indelibly marks the landscape as he wanders across a barren world. He is soon seized by a desert tribe of nomads, who grab him by his umbilical cord and greet him with a startling reception: he vomits part of his organs, an act the nomads accept as gifts rather than grotesque tragedy. They lead him up a rocky hillside, subject him to torture, and finally throw him into a fire pit where he burns to death. Yet death is not the end once the mother steps in again; she Mother Earth resurrects him, offering quiet comfort as they continue their trek across the harsh wilderness.

Their fragile passage is interrupted when the nomads reappear, attacking him again while the mother lingers nearby in a trance-like state. The assault escalates as the nomads knock her to the ground and proceed to sexually assault and murder her as her son lies injured and powerless nearby. The scene shifts to a procession of robed figures arriving to carry away her mutilated remains. They travel to a gorge, where they harvest mounds of clay into small jars, a ritual that feels like a grim craftsmanship of memory and loss. The robed men then cut the mother’s body into pieces, crush her bones, and seal them into the jars. With this act complete, they abduct and murder her son as well, repeating the same ritual and burying the jars deep into the crust of the earth.

Over time, the buried jars become connected to a lush earth—flowers and crops sprout in a vivid montage that hints at a cyclical regeneration tied to the robed god. The film closes on a stark, haunting image: the mother and son wander once more through a forest as the cycle begins anew, leaving the viewer with a sense of an ancient, inexorable rhythm that binds birth, violence, and renewal.