On the Last Great Film of the Year with Birdman (or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Last day of the year and one of the best films of the year. Birdman is everything film should be across all disciplines: inventive, challenging and experimental. Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu along with his screenwriters have carved a monumental piece of cinema out of the story of an actor desperate to claw back some of the passion that got him into acting that his superhero trilogy has erased.

Iñárritu creates a fluid style of filming that makes it hard to see the cuts (what few there are and making it one of the most impressive collection of acting performances this year) by roaming his camera around the theatre that comprises the majority of the setting. Characters walk in and out of each other’s scenes as the camera, close and personal, has unlimited access to their lives. Not only is this impressive technically, it mirrors the narrative as Michael Keaton’s actor/director demands honesty in performance of his actors, Iñárritu is demanding the same and is rewarded with performances that feel organic, not scripted. All of this while creating intertextual performances as both Keaton and Edward Norton play on expected media roles of their real selves.

The role of the media, whether in the form of critics or social media plays a large part in Birdman’s questioning of celebrity. Another theme it manages to weave into its complex yet flowing narrative. Keaton craves respect, which as his daughter reminds him, doesn’t exist in the form he remembers. Adapting Raymond Carver means nothing. 80,000 followers on Twitter can revive your career. Keaton struggles to come to terms with this, understandably adding to his paranoia and anxiety. The theatre critic here is venomous.

On top of everything that Birdman manages to achieve, it takes aim at the non-stop Marvel big wheel that refuses to stop turning. This criticism is apt and timely. Birdman is everything these films are not (inventive, challenging and experimental) and as Keaton reels through great actors that have been swallowed by Marvel he quips, “they put him in a cape, too”, knowing the pain all to well himself. An experience Keaton, post Batman, he may have experienced.

That Birdman is so immersive means that we don’t have time to question every issue it prods, we just get taken along for the ride. In a style similar to Anna Karenina (2012), scenes bleed into each other, removing a sense of reality, but allowing the fluidity of the camera to keep moving and mirroring the uncertain reality that exists in the mind of Keaton, a man literally haunted by past roles. This is a film that addresses much without seeming to try. It is consistently impressive and so complete in its aim and so confident in its style and of its form and structure that all we can do is sit back, enjoy and applaud the achievement.