Review : Bird man

B I R D M A N

A washed up actor, who once played an iconic superhero, battles his ego and attempts to recover his family, his career and himself in the days leading up to the opening of a Broadway play.

Bird man is certainly a different type of film, especially for today's standards.

It's one of those hybrid films which has it's main plot and it's own ideals to it, but also has many other subject matters surrounding it. And a hybrid film is a film made up of different genres because there is elements of romance in there, action, adventure and thrill to name a few. 

I think by watching Bird man if you go into intending to get not much out of it then that's exactly what your going to get. This is something which your concentration must be focussed on at all times, where you pay attention to every detail not because you should but because you want to, that's what is clever abut Bird man it wants to interest you and you can't help but be interested in it. 

It's clear direction from director Alejandro González Iñárritu demonstrates and shows moral and diverse perspective which dares to be any other than ordinary. I think this is a good film to watch to gain an experience because we have the films which we all know are classics and we have a comfort zone of films we like, but this is worth seeing to get out of that comfort zone and to actually see this one person's perspective and it's different things for different people which I hope a general audience will enjoy. After all it would be dull if an audience went to the cinema to watch something they know they were going to enjoy. 

In the opening shot, the viewing point is what appears to be booster rockets from a space shuttle shooting up through the sky.

And that's all you need because then for the rest of the film to go from here up until the final scene is designed to look like one continuous shot. A single camera in long takes edited together to make it look like one-take, a similar technique which Alfred Hitchcock used to do in his films, one of the most clever perspective's a director could have is trying to get one over the audience.

1. So the story goes that Former cinema superhero Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) is mounting an ambitious Broadway production that he hopes will breathe new life into his stagnant career. It's a risky business  however what he hopes to achieve from is creative gamble is that he's a real artist and not just a washed-up movie star. As opening night approaches, a castmate is injured, forcing Riggan to hire an actor (Edward Norton) who is guaranteed to stir things up a bit.

   
   

   It is quite a long film it's 119 minutes in length so the film has amble time to cover a lot and it's tricky to have a plot this complex and how do you pitch that to an audience of people who are sitting in a cinema and have given up their time to come and watch your film? You need to communicate with the audience in such a way that you hope will create the connection you want in order to get the right reaction and make the experience of watching your film worth while.

   
   

   In my view, I would of probably enjoyed this better if I understood it better, I got the gist of what was going on but this was a bit of weird and complex film for me which shows ambitious and passionate perspective from a keen director who knows what he wants from his actors.

   
   

   6/10.

   
   

   Next Review : Starred Up.