Director: Alejandro G. Inarritu
By Alfonso Cuaron
Is it a bird? Is it an airplane? No, it’s Birdman! And it’s hovering over our heads fighting a cosmic battle, enabling his super-powers: shame, judgment and self-doubt against his super-nemesis: love, acceptance, trust and peace of mind.
The virtues of Alejandro’s film are many and far transcend the simplistic understanding that a good film is a combination of a well-told story with compelling performances and technical mastery.
Alejandro understands cinema as a language, an art form in which every single element within its creation has a life of its own and echoes every other element. A holistic entity that is servicing a theme, a labyrinth of mirrors in which every wall comments and complements the other, all of them reflecting our own self.
A relentless single shot doesn’t exist for the sake of technical virtuosity– it is the projection of Riggan’s anxiety speeding on a collision course to his opening night, to the opening of his own heart.
He plunges through characters that fight their own addictions and inadequacies, but that are also the voices of Riggan’s own fears and regrets.
And when the train finally crashes, Riggan’s newfound freedom is simply expressed by a look from Sam, his daughter, looking up to the sky, and her smile. “You confuse love for admiration,” Sam tells Riggan.
