Birdman was a film I was very excited to see, and for good reason. It's the latest effort from the usually talented but sombre Alejandro González Iñárritu, whose previous works include the "Trilogy of Death" of Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel. Yet Birdman is almost nothing like these films - it's spectacular, an acerbic roller coaster ride of a film that reaches for the stars and settles for nothing less than pure, unadulterated cinema.
It's about a washed-up Hollywood actor, Riggan Thompson, who decides to mount a Broadway stage adaptation of a Raymond Carver story, and in what may be the smartest casting choice of the year Iñárritu casts Michael Keaton in the title role. Almost every aspect of production seems to be geared towards emphasising Keaton's strengths - he's always been a phenomenal actor with an acute sense of comic timing (see: Beetlejuice, Much Ado About Nothing), but his abilities reach their very peak here, as he is both able to absolutely nail the funniest, sharpest lines in a funny, sharp script and generate an enormous amount of pathos for his vulnerable character. Thompson was once a star of a franchise of superhero films, centred around the titular "Birdman" character (essentially interchangeable with Batman, Keaton's big break), but he has decided to overcome his ego and reputation by earning artistic integrity in the viable medium of the theatre. Of course, it's not as simple as that - his ego is starting to manifest itself in strange places, such as a growling voiceover of Birdman himself, and he's begun to develop magical powers that might just allow him to fly.
It could easily become a cliché-ridden role, but Keaton is anything but - he effortlessly grounds the film, allowing the audience to latch onto a complicated yet sympathetic character, whose troubled relationship with his daughter and ex-wife truly resonate. He also has the unenviable job of guiding us through the weirder elements of the film, namely the style - the film appears to be shot in a single long-take (it's actually about five takes stitched together, although the transition between them is seamless) that had the potential be irritating and gimmicky, but it succeeds in being neither. Instead, the film's structure resembles a stream of consciousness, bound only by the limits of the imagination. Who says that a walk down the street can't turn into a sudden moment of blockbuster fury, then into a transcendent moment of levitation, then into an exhilarating, beautiful flight through the streets of New York? It's never quite clear whether Thompson's magical powers are real or imaginary - Iñárritu provides contradictory clues - but the attitude of the film is that it doesn't matter. This is cinema, where nothing is real yet everything is possible, and this should be positively celebrated.
I should mention the acting, for this is a film primarily about actors and the theatre. I've said how superb Keaton is, but he's frequently in danger of being upstaged by a pitch-perfect Edward Norton as a method actor from hell - he cleverly undermines his reputation as the world's most serious actor with some ridiculously funny sequences, notably a boxing match in a tight pair of white leopard skin underwear. Also worth mention is Emma Stone as Thompson's troubled daughter, who looks like Bambi even when she's spitting off the side of the side of a building and who nabs the film's most affecting monologue.
It's interesting - the person I went to see this film with described it as "cynical about Hollywood", which I didn't agree with, although the idea has some merit. It's certainly critical about franchises, and films which exploit the viewer for profit. But Birdman is also critical of the elitism often found in people like myself - a critic played by Lindsay Duncan is cynical and prejudiced, claiming that Hollywood actors don't belong on Broadway - and what I think the film is trying to achieve is a detoxification of all the bullshit we associate with films. The egos, the politics, the complacent expectations we have for how a story should be told, they're all distractions from the real magic of filmmaking. I suppose in that way it's self-reflexive, aware that it's indulging in some of cinema's real pleasures and subverting them (I promised myself that I wouldn't describe it as "post-modern", because I sound like a 15 year old who just watched The Matrix). But this doesn't lessen the film's impact in any way, and it's still mercilessly entertaining even when it's undermining everything you expected. I'm still not quite sure what I'm talking about, but I know one thing for sure - Birdman is more than worth your time.
★★★★★
