"Few motion pictures have the power to jolt an audience with the fury, imagination, and artistic violence of Begotten, a 1991 tour de force from Elias Merhige currently debuting on home video. This cryptic independent production is a film of eccentric brilliance, skillfully balancing the glorious and the grotesque in an unforgettable work of art. Perhaps the most striking aspect of Begotten is its cinematography. Filmmaker Merhige photographed his work on 16-mm black-and-white reversal film and then rephotographed the footage frame by frame on black-and-white negatives through density filters, a four-year labor that required 10 hours of work for each minute of the 78-minute film. The result is a visual work unlike any other - one that looks like an ancient ritual filmed on the scene thousands of years ago and only recently dusted off for viewing." - Phil Hall, Wired