Immaculate Conception Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.0

Immaculate Conception Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 7, 2020

There were around only a half dozen or so years between Jamil Dehlavi’s Born of Fire (which came out in 1986 or 1987, depending on whom you believe) and Immaculate Conception (which, er, was born in 1992, though some sources state 1998), but in at least some salient ways, both films are of a certain piece. First of all, as even James Wilby, one of the two principal stars of Immaculate Conception, gets into in an interview included on this disc as a supplemental feature, Dehlavi’s films are often opaque to the point of frankly not making sense. Wilby argues that there is a comprehensible plot in Immaculate Conception, but some may find it at least partially obscured by weird, often intentionally hallucinatory, imagery, and a surplus of subplots that keep the film darting off into various nooks and crannies at unexpected moments. But perhaps more importantly, aside from any consternation both films will probably engender in many viewers, Born of Fire and Immaculate Conception share a proto-religious aspect that includes the birth of what might be thought of as a “mystical child”. Immaculate Conception in fact begins with an American Jew named Hannah (Melissa Leo in an early performance) and her photographer friend Samira (Shabana Azmi) visiting a real life shrine in Pakistan called Gulab Shah which is home to supposedly magically empowered eunuchs, including in this case a central supporting character in the film, Shehzada (Zia Mohyeddin, whom some viewers may remember from such films as Lawrence of Arabia and Khartoum).

While Samira is off photographing various pilgrims and other revelers, Shehzada seems to intuit almost instantaneously that Hannah is suffering from fertility problems and wants a baby, and tells her, via some helpful translation from his young acolyte Kamal (Ronny Jhutti), that if she wishes for a baby, she will have one, though she will need to return to the shrine with her husband to make that wish a reality. Hannah of course instantly does wish for a child, at which point the film segues to her home life with her husband, a Brit (and evidently a non-Jew, though this really isn’t overtly gotten into that much) named Alistair (James Wilby). Hannah kind of discursively mentions she was at a shrine catering to issues of fertility, and wonders if Alistair might throw caution to the wind and visit the shrine with her. Alistair perhaps understandably believes his wife’s obviously intense desire to have a child has clouded her mind with “superstition”, but in a probably unsurprising turn of events, the couple does return to the shrine, which just as predictably leads to several unexpected consequences.

The film actually begins with the unabashedly unusual looking Shehzada, who has what would probably be termed a “masculine” face, but who is heavily made up and dressed kind of nonconformingly, and who is singing a song in a high, feminine voice. That was probably a somewhat shocking image for audiences in the 1990s, and may help to account at least in part for the film’s general lack of renown not just in the United States, but overseas as well, where it evidently didn’t even make the home video market in the United Kingdom until almost two decades after its initial theatrical release. But the opening sequence is just one of several provocative elements in Immaculate Conception, which includes several pretty graphic sex scenes involving Hannah and Alistair, as well as a perhaps slightly more nuanced one involving Hannah and Kamal ( that plot point may help to explicate some of the “detours” this film takes).

The film in fact kind of seems to want to explore cultural differences between outsiders and at least some corners of Islam, and there's a lot of content devoted to Hannah's supposed Judaism and how her flirtation with the customs at the shrine collide with her "birth tradition". However, Dehlavi (who wrote as well as directed the film) makes some curious decisions in this regard. One big "showdown" scene between Hannah and her brother David (Tim Choate), who flies over from America to supposedly talk some sense into Hannah after she has indeed given birth, has Hannah quoting the Gospel of John as an indication of what being Jewish means ("in the beginning was the Word, and we're people of the Word"), which of course is probably going to strike Jews in particular as a patently odd New Testament reference for a supposedly Jewish character to be making (though admittedly there is a mystical branch of Judaism that John's gospel supposedly references itself in these opening phrases).

As Jamil Dehlavi gets into a brief interview with him included on this disc as a supplement, he was actually in the planning process for a documentary on various shrines when he initially became interested in Gulab Shah and its eunuchs, and I have to say I almost wish he had made a documentary, since the shrine and its denizens are obviously fascinating. The film’s dramatic accretions, though, aren’t necessarily helpful and in some cases are downright melodramatic. Those who are knowledgeable about Gulab Shah and the people found there may have passing problems with the whole fertility subplot and especially with the almost “rave” like atmosphere that is supposedly part of the ritual that Hannah and Alistair participate in to “ensure” their procreative success, though the film kind of hedges it bets as to how “involved” Kamal actually is (and that aspect is probably going to raise a few eyebrows in and of itself). And in fact a whole subplot involving Kamal and Shehzada is troubling on a whole variety of levels, something else that may make this at best an uncomfortable viewing experience for some.

Immaculate Conception Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Immaculate Conception is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Powerhouse Film's Indicator imprint with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Powerhouse's insert booklet contains the following verbiage on the presentation:

Immaculate Conception was restored by Powerhouse Films at Final Frame Post, London. The film's original 35mm camera negative was scanned at 4K. Colour correction work was supervised and approved by director Jamil Dehlavi and cinematographer Nic Knowland. Restoration work was undertaken at 2K to remove dirt and unstable frames. The film's stereo audio was remastered from the original 35mm separate magnetic track elements, and the alternative mono audio was remastered from an original theatrical print.

Whatever qualms one may have about some of the dramatic elements in the film, visually this is quite ravishing a lot of the time, as tends to be the case with Dehlavi's films. While some of this presentation is deliberately "gauzy" looking, with diffusion filters and soft ambient lighting choices, in bright environments, including some nice outdoor material, the palette pops beautifully and detail levels are typically excellent. A lot of the interior work looked skewed toward yellow to me, but I'm assuming this was a deliberate stylistic choice given the participation of Dehlavi and Knowland in this transfer (I never saw Immaculate Conception theatrically, and in fact I'd be surprised if it ever played this market). Some of the darkest interior work can look pretty rough and without the same levels of fine detail as the bulk of the presentation.

Immaculate Conception Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Kind of interestingly, Immaculate Conception offers either LPCM 2.0 or 1.0 tracks, both described as "original" (with either "stereo" or "mono", as the case may be) on the Audio Menu. The stereo track definitely opens up the soundstage, probably most dramatically in some of the rather beautiful music that suffuses the film (something else this effort shares with Born of Fire). Dialogue sounded slightly masked in the stereo iteration to me, and was more consistently forward in the mix in the mono version, though there are optional subtitles for anyone having a hard time deciphering what's being said.

Immaculate Conception Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Saints and Sinners (1080p; 5:55) is an interview with Jamil Dehlavi where he discusses having more or less stumbled across Gulab Shah while scouting locations for an evidently unmade documentary called Saints and Sinners , and getting the idea to make a film about the eunuchs there.


• A Dangerous Picture (1080p; 20:06) is an interview with James Wilby, where he briefly addresses his upbringing in a politically fraught Burma, which evidently prepared him for some of the rigors of this shoot, which he gets into while also discussing some of Dehlavi's other films.


• Leap of Faith (1080p; 21:26) is an interview with Ronny Jhutti, talking about getting one of his first featured roles in the film business with this rather interesting if tragic role.


• Exotic Warmth (1080p; 16:50) features cinematographer Nic Knowland, who discusses what working with Dehlavi and the challenges of the location shooting entailed.


• Original Trailer (1080p; 1:52)

Additionally, Powerhouse has provided another very nicely appointed insert booklet, with cast and crew information, essays and interviews, contemporar reviews and technical information.

Immaculate Conception Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Like Born of Fire, Immaculate Conception is often fascinating, if just as often incomprehensible. The film might have done better to have either concentrated solely on the eunuchs and their world, or perhaps on the conflict between Kamal and Shehzada, rather than bringing in the whole "culture clash" element, not to mention the weird fertility aspect, of Hannah and Alistair. If you're a fan of Dehlavi, everything you probably love about the auteur is on display in spades throughout this film. Technical merits are solid, and the supplementary package quite interesting, for those considering a purchase.