Product Details

• Region: Region 4 (Read more about DVD formats.)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0009YGLU0
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #381,044 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A real curiousity, September 21, 2006

By 

D. I. Shipley "David Shipley" (KENT United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Baby of Macon RARE UNCUT [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.4 Import - New Zealand ] (DVD)

Director Peter Greenaway, no stranger to making films with an OTT content made this - The Baby Of Macon in 1994. It was slammed by many critics for being too OTT (even by Greenaway's standards) and indeed many of the audience who did show up to watch it, tended to walk out in disgust at some of the sequences. The film faded quietly away in cinemas and its subsequent releases on both vhs and dvd tended to do the same... That is a shame because while the film has its flaws, it has strengths which propel it into 4 star territory.

The film is of the recreation of a stage play put on for a bloated aristocrat. The play is about the lurid events that happened in the French town of Macon during Medieval times. However, reality and what is being played blur and soon the audience find themselves participants in the events which become increasingly (and at times disgustingly) real.
The story sees a hideously overweight and ageing woman give birth to a beautiful baby. The townspeople are incredulous that this could happen which allows one of the woman's older daughters, a manipulative and scheming individual, played by Julia Ormond to claim that the baby is hers, and arrived via a divine conception. The child does seem to have powers of healing and blessing and as his guardian the young woman is soon on her way to making a fortune from payments from those eager to benefit from the child's seemingly divine powers. However, events later take a turn for the worse and the Church is shown in an unflattering light, as it makes an unpleasant inervention when things start to spin out of control. Indeed, Greenaway is essentially accusing the Church of being a self serving institution, more interested in the maintenance of power and control, rather than carrying out its historical mission.

Be warned the gore and sexual content is very strong indeed. The graphic sex scene between Ray Fiennes and Julia Ormond is then followed by the incredibly gruesome death of Fiennes' character.
Julia Ormond's character is sentenced to be raped by over 200 men by a vengeful Church official....
The child dies and is graphically dismembered on screen by the adoring townspeople as they each seek a 'relic' from his body.The net result of this OTT content is that it tends to dilute and blur the film's message rather than underline it though.
Gore aside, the film is sumptuous to look at and the costumes are an explosion of colour and detail. The film boasts a strong cast that includes Ray Fiennes, Julia Ormond, Don Henderson and others.

To sum up, watching The Baby of Macon is an experience, you could hardly call it entertainment. However, it remains a film that should be seen. The New Zealand dvd (which at the time of writing) is the only official dvd release, has been cut but is still very gruesome. If you wish to see the uncut version of the film, then pick up a UK release vhs. Just make sure that you have a strong stomach.....

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Unjustly Maligned Masterpiece, April 18, 2009

By 

Thivanka Rukshan Perera "Thivanka" (San Francisco, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Baby of Macon RARE UNCUT [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.4 Import - New Zealand ] (DVD)

'Baby of Macon (1993)' is, in my humble opinion, Peter Greenaway's best work. Unfortunately, this is also where he began to lose his audience, even the Europeans who heralded his feature films since 'The Draughtsman's Contract (1982)', criticized it as being 'ugly, empty and stylistically barren'. I will agree that to a certain extent it is 'ugly'--in a thematic sense, of course; but accusations that it is 'empty' or 'stylistically barren' is unwarranted. Greenaway's trademark sumptuous 'baroque' cinematography/production design is still there, albeit more intricately structured as the narrative is a Masque (a form of 17th Century play that relied on audience participation)--so it is NOT stylistically barren in any way. Indeed, the lighting and opulent set-design--its constantly 'animate' theatrical nature, is a sight to behold (hats-off to cinematographer Sacha Vierny & set designers Ben van Os/Jan Roelfs).

As to whether it is 'empty', one need only to pay attention. Often, as you can see from the multiple reviews vilifying the film, people are more attuned to judging the whole piece from a single controversial scene (specifically the notorious, extended rape sequence). Yet those who've stayed on till the end know that the last sequence itself sums up the whole thematic structure of the film: the stagy, theatrical nature of the spectacle and its audience, the audience watching the audience, and in the end the whole cast applauding at the screen--us, that is. As with all Greenaway films prior to this, we are again reminded that what we're experiencing is a film and nothing more, and that it's not a 'slice of reality' and never claimed to be. Ever since 'The Falls (1980)', Peter Greenaway utilized this self-referencing Brechtian technique to emotionally distance the audience--us--from the 'spectacle' unraveling on the screen; so that instead of being viscerally involved (something most mainstream pictures aim at), we're at an distance to critically judge the actions before us, and finally to self-reflect on how it pertains to the particular viewer/viewers.

Unfortunately, most audiences judged 'Baby of Macon' based on their own prejudices--sexual, political and religious. The film failed to find an American distributor, mostly due to its scathing position on fundamentalist religion, and Peter Greenaway's status--even as an art-house innovator--was unjustly relegated to that of 'shock provocateur'. On a positive note, many people are revisiting it on home video only to find its abundant merits. Even though the film is set in the 17th century, its themes are undoubtedly contemporary and will continue to be so in years to come.

Note on DVD: The film was so controversial that it failed to find an American distributor, thus it is not officially available on Region 1 DVD. The only available 'official' DVD for 'Baby Of Macon' is the Australian release, which happens to be a very poor transfer. Currently, it remains the only way to see this film on DVD (and it's ultra rare & expensive).

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Irreverent, sardonic and provocative film!, September 15, 2010

By 

Hiram Gomez Pardo (Valencia, Venezuela) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Baby of Macon RARE UNCUT [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.4 Import - New Zealand ] (DVD)

If during the sixties, Monza's nun scandalized the world, the seventies with ken Russell's The Devils, and Walerian Borowczyk's Immoral tales with Paloma Picasso inflamed the screens, the Baby of Macon has been in the Nineties, the most courageous, provocative, irreverent and acidic metaphor about the abuse of power through the religion.

Peter Greenaway displays all his artistic potential in which converge theater, painting and oratories. The brutal narration takes place during the XVII Century in the age of the Counter-Reform. A blessed baby captures the vivid imagination of most of people who venerates him. Since that fact, a merciless set of misfortunate events will happen to ignite the screen. Plenty of visual violence, powerful images and finally a process of quartering product of religious frenzy, the film will be far to be admired for many but it's a devastating movie that must not be disregarded.

This film will convey you to the last boundaries of the unthinkable and the unbearable due the excesses provoked by the awesome fanatic attitude and the acts of double moral suggested and showed, explicitly.

Julie Ormond is terrific as the Virgin. Good cast, splendid photography of Sacha Vierny and sumptuous camera handling conform a disturbing film.