Birdman (Alejandro González Iñárritu)

A mixed bag, albeit a generally compelling one.

Inarritu has a tendency to spell pretty much everything out, and that's what lets Birdman down. The film's themes are so aggressively articulated, and the characters so broad, that there's little room for the audience to figure things out for themselves. There are some little nuances here and there, yes, and the film is undoubtedly at its best when it allows visual symbolism - as heavy-handed as it may be - to do the storytelling. But too much of the film is told through shouting matches, extreme outbursts of emotion, broad humour and dialogue / references that leaves no room for ambiguity. It's definitely one way to tell a story, but one that left me cold here.

I think a lot of the subplots in particular were misjudged. I was hoping the scene where Riseborough and Watts didn't go the direction it did, since it was such a bloomin' cheap and obvious one, especially with nothing in the way of follow-up. Ditto Stone and Norton's relationship. It's not even about their performances, because I think an amount of overacting actually suits the characters and the theatricality of the film. Even bearing that in mind, the film relies too heavily on broad tropes and cheap swipes. Galifianakis IMO did a very poor job indeed, proving ill-equipped to navigate the line between comedy and drama - although working with an underdeveloped character.

The technique and presentation I'm divided on. As a technical exercise it's quite impressive, and the loose camera work suited the tone and intensity of the film overall. The very technique helped determine the pace and mood of the film, and it's nice to see a visual style so closely integrated with everything else, even if everything else can be quite problematic. I appreciated seeing some of Lubezki's playful experimentation with cinematic time as well as space - some of the moments where it relatively seamlessly traveled between different sequences and even full days were very well handled. I'd be lying, however, if there wasn't a certain amount of distraction trying to spot the seams much of the time - as opposed to feeling like an organic flow, some of the transitions only highlighted how inorganic it actually is here - ironically, several cuts stand out even more when the filmmakers attempt to disguise them. Still, kudos for experimenting with form, and with not insignificant success for the most part.

I quite enjoyed the film's relative relentlessness, and the drum soundtrack was enjoyably propulsive. Keaton fit snugly into his role - even if, like the film overall, the metaness was a tad grating - and the effects-heavy sequences near the end managed to explore some of the film's themes, cultural critiques and even character arcs in a richer and more satisfying way than the more verbose methods employed elsewhere.