Birdman

Any actor worth his salt is usually trying to test the limits of his craft. But what if he is called upon to perform a role in which he has to play an average actor? How many negations must he do within himself?

It is a leap that Michael Keaton clears by a mile in Birdman and that is the reason he will probably get an Oscar this year.

It is hard to categorise Birdman, but, to draw an analogy from the novel, magical realism would be a loose fit. A former superstar best known for playing a superhero called Birdman wants a last shot at finding his own relevance. And he sinks his reputation and money into making a Broadway play on a Raymond Carver short story, ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Love’.

Nothing goes right for Keaton. Edward Norton, who plays the other main character and a better actor in the play, is contemptuous of him. The three public previews all end in comic debacles.

Keaton finds his life and mind unravelling as the date of the play’s first show approaches until finally there is a breaking point. Just as you think that the movie is flagging off, it soars again in a mix of tragicomedy.

Alejandro González Iñárritu uses wild narrative devices and a music score that seems to meld scenes into a flurry of drum beats. Birdman is the kind of movie that would be called an art film if not for the fact that it is so deliciously entertaining.

Casting Keaton, who was the orginal Batman before he disappeared from the limelight like the character he plays, is one of the ways in which Iñárritu conjoins reality and art. Birdman appeals at every level— emotional and intellectual. It is, like Carver’s short stories, an amusing dive into the deepest recesses of the human condition.

About The Author

Madhavankutty Pillai

Madhavankutty Pillai has no specialisations whatsoever. He is among the last of the generalists. And also Open chief of bureau, Mumbai  

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