Tabula Rosa?

"They" say when a child is born, he or she is a 'Tabula Rosa' - a blank slate, with no memories, a 'new' mind on which a 'new' life can be recorded.

Is this true? Are we blank slates at birth, with no recollection of any other time or space? Or do our souls 'house' themselves in a different physical vessel, retaining but yet not consciously remembering anything that happened in the past?

Birth deals subtly, stunningly and brilliantly with this subject, in profound depth, showing what can happen if something triggers past memories in a person - in this case, it's a ten-year-old child, whose consciousness is reawakened to incidents in a past life, a life that left at least one serious issue unresolved: his relationship with his wife, Anna (Nicole Kidman, giving undoubtedly her most exquisitely transcendent performance to date, and there's been quite of few of them).

The film is a near-masterpiece, as shocking and provocative as Glazer's first movie, Sexy Beast, which I also loved. This movie must be seen at least twice; there are so many subtle plot points that occur in the set-up alone (and throughout the piece as well) that it's almost impossible to digest it all in one viewing, things that make all the difference when you see it the second time.