Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignornace (15.)
Directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.
Starring Michael Keaton, Emma Stone, Edward Norton, Naomi Watts, Zach Galifianakis and Andrea Riseborough. Released on New Year's Day. 119 mins.
The latest film from Mexican Alejandro G. (formerly Gonzalez) Inarritu, maker of Babel and Biutiful, is an unclassifiable and unpindownable hybrid, a backstage comedy drama made as cinematic tour de force, a restless bombastic illusion of pure momentum achieved through kinetic camera work and disguised edits rather than smoke and mirrors, in which Michael Keaton, the one true Batman, is a movie star famous for playing the caped crusader of the title in three blockbusters twenty years previously but is now risking reputation, fortune and his sanity on writing, directing and starring in a Broadway play adapted from the works of Raymond Carver called What We Talk About When We Talk About Love and of course, the whole thing is beset with disasters such as an injury to a cast member, an influential New York Times critic intent on closing the show with a bad review and an egotistical actor (Norton, outstanding) intent on stealing his glory in the name of Truth and all of this is conveyed in a restless, ants-in-the-pants style in which it is made to seem as if the film has been made in one long unbroken shot and the camera is like a caged beast, forever restlessly prowling the labyrinth of corridors and dressing rooms backstage and occasionally expanding out to the streets surrounding the theatre and frequently the scene will include some magical special effect shot seemingly done in camera (this film has the most How Did They Do That scenes since Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men) and overall the effect is staggering, funny, disturbing and largely inscrutable, and for most of the time it is accompanied by a frantic percussive score and the film doesn't give you a moment's piece, is constantly moving you on to the next big scene, clever trick, never really letting you engage with the piece or get your bearings so that as the battle between commerce and art is played out within Keaton's character (he has an inner Birdman voice, that sounds not unlike Christian Bale's growly Bat voice, that keep accusing him of being a phoney) you may get to wondering if this dazzling piece, that overwhelms you with tricks and smart lines and a stupendous cast but never really lets you in on what it might be about could just be the intellectual, arthouse equivalent of a Michael Bay summer movie, a finely orchestrated series of explosions that disguise that there may not actually be any substance beneath the glittery surface.
Review of Biutiful
Review of Babel
Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignornace (15.)
Directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.
Starring Michael Keaton, Emma Stone, Edward Norton, Naomi Watts, Zach Galifianakis and Andrea Riseborough. Released on New Year's Day. 119 mins.
The latest film from Mexican Alejandro G. (formerly Gonzalez) Inarritu, maker of Babel and Biutiful, is an unclassifiable and unpindownable hybrid, a backstage comedy drama made as cinematic tour de force, a restless bombastic illusion of pure momentum achieved through kinetic camera work and disguised edits rather than smoke and mirrors, in which Michael Keaton, the one true Batman, is a movie star famous for playing the caped crusader of the title in three blockbusters twenty years previously but is now risking reputation, fortune and his sanity on writing, directing and starring in a Broadway play adapted from the works of Raymond Carver called What We Talk About When We Talk About Love and of course, the whole thing is beset with disasters such as an injury to a cast member, an influential New York Times critic intent on closing the show with a bad review and an egotistical actor (Norton, outstanding) intent on stealing his glory in the name of Truth and all of this is conveyed in a restless, ants-in-the-pants style in which it is made to seem as if the film has been made in one long unbroken shot and the camera is like a caged beast, forever restlessly prowling the labyrinth of corridors and dressing rooms backstage and occasionally expanding out to the streets surrounding the theatre and frequently the scene will include some magical special effect shot seemingly done in camera (this film has the most How Did They Do That scenes since Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men) and overall the effect is staggering, funny, disturbing and largely inscrutable, and for most of the time it is accompanied by a frantic percussive score and the film doesn't give you a moment's piece, is constantly moving you on to the next big scene, clever trick, never really letting you engage with the piece or get your bearings so that as the battle between commerce and art is played out within Keaton's character (he has an inner Birdman voice, that sounds not unlike Christian Bale's growly Bat voice, that keep accusing him of being a phoney) you may get to wondering if this dazzling piece, that overwhelms you with tricks and smart lines and a stupendous cast but never really lets you in on what it might be about could just be the intellectual, arthouse equivalent of a Michael Bay summer movie, a finely orchestrated series of explosions that disguise that there may not actually be any substance beneath the glittery surface.
Review of Biutiful
Review of Babel
