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Also Known As: - |
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| Year of first release: 2014 | |
| Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu (Amores Perros, Babel, Biutiful) | |
| Actors: Michael Keaton (Batman, Multiplicity), Emma Stone (The Amazing Spiderman 1-2), Edward Norton (Fight Club), Naomi Watts (King Kong) | |
| Country: USA, CDN | |
| Genre: Drama | |
| Conditions of visioning: 19.01.2015, Schauburg, OV sneak preview | |
| Synopsis: 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. | |
| Review: It is not easy to have a consensual idea of the whole story. After having seen the movie, on 5 persons, we had 5 understandings of the story, of the goal. The movie does not stop with the closed curtain.What I like and reminds me some David Lynch movies such as Lost Highway or Mulholland Drive. The acting is excellent, because it really feels like a concentrate of emotions, of strong emotions, on many characters and especially the four main ones. Every time that there is a change in the situation (new room, people coming out or coming in the frame) there is also and immediately an emotional topic (as different as e.g. father/daughter relationship, missing father, ego, career, goal of acting, professional competition, love rivalry, frivolity) discussed and brought to the point. This means the dialogues have been subtly written. The long take is impressive and there must be some tricks as the camera passes time to time through guardrails or so. This shows not only a great mastering of the direction to organise all the sequence and the actors, the locations, the objects (Iñárritu), but also of cinematography and photography (Emmanuel Lubetzki, who did also Interstellar with the amazing first scene). |
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Rating: 8 /10
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More than entertainment, an Art.
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Birdman (2014)
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It is interesting that the opinions on this movie are usually bipolar: people either love or hate it. I have been hearing about it for a year now so I was glad to watch it on 02.04.2015 at the Star StExupery cinema in Strasbourg while I was passing there. And I am glad to say that I share your opinion of it.
ReplyDeleteI like the technical side, i.e. it looks like the whole movie (or at least the first two thirds) was shot in one long sequence. This brilliant effect is undoubtedly the work of the Emmanuel Lubetzki who created similar effects in Children of Men and Gravity (and not Interstellar as you mentioned). For me this incredible feat is not just for fun. In Children of Men it immerses us more in the Action and make us fear for the heroes. In Gravity it helps giving realism to the zero-gravity scenes. And in Birdman it helps compressing time (we jump from one day to the next without cutting scene), thus strengthening the feeling of pressure the main character undergoes.
I also like the actors: a very natural Michael Keaton maybe inspired by his post-Batman years, Edward Norton that gives life to some scenes, Zach Galifianakis not in a stupid role for once (unlike in the Hangovers or in Due Date), the sexy Emma Stone...
This is a drama as I like them: told in an original and not dramatic way. My rating: 9/10.
I am now tempted to watch other movies by Iñárritu: Amores Perros, Babel, Biutiful.