I watched Birth for the second time the other night. There are movies I've loved the first time, then thought on the second time around, hmmm, maybe not as good as I first thought - State of Grace, Fight Club, for instance. There are movies I hated the first time, and hated just as much the second - Lost in Translation and In the Cut come to mind. There are movies that I hated at first, but later came to think were quite good, e.g. Sin City. And there are movies that were magnificent the first time, and even more magnificent the second. Birth is one of these.<br /><br />This movie, more than any other, reveals the lack of credibility attaching to the Academy Awards. There are always injustices, whereby the most deserving walk away without the prize. In the acting category alone, I can think of Gary Oldman in State of Grace, Cate Blanchett for Elizabeth, Russell Crowe for A Beautiful Mind, Naomi Watts for 21 Grams (hmmm, a lot of Aussies and Kiwis in there - I wonder if there's a message in this). But the greatest travesty of all is not just that Nicole Kidman didn't waltz away with the award by a mile or two for this movie, but wasn't even nominated. One of the great pleasures of this film is watching her sublime performance as she moves gently from suppressed grief to insane grief. She's the one carrying the movie, and takes part in so many outstanding scenes - the lingering shot at the concert hall, trying to explain the situation to Clifford (the best man at her marriage to Sean) during which her declining mental state starts to reveal itself, the scene in the bathroom when she reveals her insane plan to run away with the boy only to find that he's a liar, the boardroom scene in which she tries to tell Joseph that none of it was her fault (probably my favourite scene), the heartrending scene at the beach.<br /><br />The movie also reveals the hypocrisy, cowardice and basic stupidity of the film establishment. It's possible I've missed it, but no critic savaging this movie and its premise seems to have cottoned on to the fact that Anna was going mad, although the movie makes it blatantly obvious. Rather they like to concentrate on the couple of brief scenes in which the boy climbs into the bath with Anna, and later kisses her on the lips, both handled with taste, discretion, and restraint. Aaaah, shock, horror! The scenes are described as being disturbing, unsavory, of questionable taste. And yet for a film like This Is England, in which a much cruder relationship between a young boy and an older girl is explored ("you look like a four old, but kiss like a 40 year old!") the relationship is described as "cute".<br /><br />This, without a doubt, is one of the finest films I've seen, containing possibly the greatest performance of all. A 10/10.