"A Wonderfully Disorientating Film" Birdman (2014) Review

as found on impawards.com

A maddening movie. This is a maddening movie, but not in the bad sense. Birdman is mainly a story of a failed superhero actor trying to make a musical and that barely describes anything that goes on in the movie. The film tells at least eight stories simultaneously and all intersect winding itself into a conspicuously well told creation. By this nature, the movie can be disorienting and understandably so.

The cinematography is different. Rather than the usual constant changing perspectives, Birdman makes use of the film technique of the long shot. The majority of the scenes are shot without stopping in between putting more burdens on the actors to be able to complete the scene without any error. It is quite a spectacle to watch.

More often than not the camera tracks the movement of the characters from one place to the next almost as if you were walking behind the character. These moments drag you along tempting you to guess the chronology of the next scene. These temptations are exceptionally prevalent at the beginning of the movie as the movement leads to odd and unexpected transitions between the time and space. The temporal and spatial transitions undermine expectations and in many ways more than one creating a nuanced disorientation that consciously cannot be perceived.

These distortions contribute to the dichotomy between realism and fantasy if it is a fantasy premise of the main character, Riggen, played by Michael Keaton. Unlike the control maintained by Wes Anderson in The Grand Budapest Hotel, the acting especially by Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, Naomi Watts, and the rest of the cast is exceptionally important in the development of the story.

Sadly, I have to say that Emma Stone’s performance is a bit lackluster compared to the rest of the cast but no less important. This is due possibly to the character being an angtsy teenager trying to find herself. Apart from this slight disappointment, the acting by both the supporting cast and the protagonists are absolutely phenomenal. No less could you see, feel, and understand the craziness as each small point of discovery.

To confound this even further, this movie is… a superhero… no, a stage play… no, a man’s own deterioration from society. It is possibly all these things or it possibly is not any of these things. The cinematography is absolutely amazing in creating these ambiguities within the story and the movies own staging also elaborates each of these points. No less you can question who exactly the audience is or whether Riggen’s own reality or fantasy is reality or fantasy.

It is an interesting conundrum developed through nuances between elements of the movie such when Riggen tries to convince the reporter to give a positive review or the drummer in the street. These elements and many more that run throughout the movie as the large looming Birdman poster in the background allows the movie to be watched many times before something can be determined.

The Poster
as found on wearemoviegeeks.com

No less impressive this movie is and has become one of my recent favorites. It captures, questions, and decodifies the nature of films, acting, and social conundrums. It is a film worth watching and watching again as you are left in a questioning state at the end of the film.