Birdman: The Truths That We Wish We Could Deny

Rating: 9/10 (25 December 2019)

Birdman, starring Michael Keaton, previously known for playing in one of the best Batman portrayals alongside Joker Jack Nicholson, is a film that gives us, conceptually, a status-quo of the world we live in, addressing what I found myself calling "the truths that we wish we could deny."
The plot is centered around a washed-up Hollywood actor, Riggan Thompson, who in his younger days played the role of a masked super-hero by the name of Birdman (notice why Keaton is perfect for the role?), a franchise that found great success in the mainstream audience. After three more than successful highly action-packed films, Thompson decides to retire from the Bird's mask, and to find a career in Broadway playwriting as he writes, directs, and stars in an adaptation of a 1981 book titled "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love." Throughout the film, we are exposed to Thompson's struggles in the leap from the mainstream film industry to the more subtle, artistic, and critical stage of Broadway, from the anger of theater critics, the audiences, and Thompson's very own family. The voice of Birdman, which has since grown into his alter-ego comes to him and haunts him in his darkest hours, and for some reason, that ties in with Thompson having telekinetic powers (but I'll let you watch that and interpret it however you like).
The main cast is perfectly fitting, starting with Michael Keaton who draws the similarities between his real-life struggle to leap from Batman to a more realistic actor and Thompson's Birdman. The co-star, in my opinion steals the show, as Edward Norton plays Mike Shiner, a very famous Broadway actor who takes over a role at the very last second of rehearsals. Everything about Norton in this film is wonderful. He carries himself like a God of the Stage, he smiles, talks, walks, and reacts perfectly in every single scene. I couldn't get enough of him. Thompson's unstable daughter, who works as his assistant, Sam, is played by Emma Stone, and Zach Galifianakis, from the Hangover plays Thompson's attorney and best friend. The dynamic in the cast is explosive, especially between Keaton and Norton who I wished just had a film of them acting on a Broadway stage.
The most important aspect of the film, and honestly, what makes it truly memorable, is its cinematic appearance. In one word, I must say it is unorthodox. The film is made to play as one big scene as the camera never shifts from a picture to another and gives us a seemingly first-person view of the backstage region of Broadway. By great editing, long takes, and the incredible talent of the cast, this created a sense of reality and anxiety at every point in the film. Accompanied by the camera work, the film score consisted mostly of jazz drums, which made every single scene incredibly enjoyable. Usually, in most films, a scene is centered around the music that's playing, and the music will then dictate the atmosphere. But in Birdman, the music is not an atmosphere setter; it is a character of its own. It fits into the conversations, and into the scenes. It reminds me of one of my favorite moments in music, when in Kendrick Lamar's "To Pimp a Butterfly," Kendrick is having a conversation with pre-recorded Tupac Shakur interviews, and slowly, but surely, a rambling jazz tune comes waltzing in, interrupting the conversation, until Tupac disappears from the conversation, and we are left with Kendrick, in the heat of a jazz band's rambling, screaming the name "PAC!". This is true cinematic art, and Birdman masters it.
I spent a few minutes thinking about some flaws and here are minor ones, without giving too many spoilers: Norton does not appear as much in the final act of the film, the last scene is extremely controversial (maybe even unnecessarily so), and Thompson's telekinetic powers, and their consequences haven't sat well with me. That's maybe all I can think of.
Conclusively, I believe that Birdman's point hits the target, and hits it hard. It will make audiences think about what they really like about cinema and entertainment, about reality and fantasy, and about the ever-growing consumerist culture in the world. This is what makes Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) an essential.