What do we talk about when we talk about filmmaking?

Rating: 9/10 (28 February 2015)

Birdman or the unexpected virtue of ignorance is this year's film of the year. A remarkable deep satire on modern Hollywood shot and panned out so brilliantly it leaves one shocked and stunned with emotions long after the credits start running.
Genuinely and passionately portrayed by M. Keaton, Birdman follows up a once-famous-now- washed-up movie star (Riggan Thomspon) who is trying to revamp himself by directing, writing and acting in his own adaptation of a love story. Riggan, just like all of us to an extent, has a big ego, which is portrayed as a physical character in birdman, a representation of something that Riggan was never able to let go. He misses the fame, the power, the fans; his desire is to be on the top again. After all, we would all love to fly across Times Square, high above everyone else. And this is all a part of a great, hilarious and clever sarcastic joke that Inarritu allows us to see.
Every major character in the movie is a satire on Hollywood and it's ways. From the co-actresses starring in the play (brilliantly portrayed by Naomi watts and Andrea Riseborough) who only desire to make it and get recognized, Riggan's agent who only cares about the public outcome rather then the one of his best friend, the critic that puts her own emotions and thoughts above everything else, audiences reactions when Riggan actually shoots himself on stage, to finally Riggan himself, who can't stay true to the twitter-and-facebook era and simply dreams of making it big again, despite all the difficulties and the sheere absurdity of doing something as blunt as his own theater production.
Yet on the side of this all, Riggan's wife is the most sensible of it all, and maybe the only thing Riggan has in his life that is true, real. She loves him for who he is and seemed to adjust to his ever growing ego, but you can clearly see how she despises it all, everything to do with this industry and it's pretentious people. And we see this echoed in their conversation just before the final scene, where Riggan can finally be honest enough to say that he regrets it all, not being with his family enough for the most part. Yet was is still so striking and inspiring about Riggan is his inability to give up, no matter what obstacles come his way, he has managed to put them aside in various ignorant (remortgaging his house that was meant to be for Sam) and hilarious (dropping a light bulb on an actor he didn't like) ways.
Mike is another character that adds so much needed diversity and angle to this film. He is a complete opposite of Riggan, he couldn't care less about the critics or what people think of him, as opposed to Riggan, he can only be himself on stage, he can't get it up with women and seems like a self-absorbent and ignorant character. His ego clashes with Riggan's, but Mike's "Birdman" isn't quite the same as Riggan's – he seems genuinely happy with what he has achieved and most importantly he is confident in everything he does, the exact opposite of Riggan himself. This provides a superb contrast into two completely different yet very similar people.
Everything is amplified even more with an amazingly original drums-only soundtrack that is so emotionally powerful it almost takes your breath away. Adding an even more original one-shot directing style makes this movie really stand out. It is a daring and honest experiment that in my opinion is a trillion times harder to pull off then something like boyhood.
The controversial ending simply represents the transformation of Riggan from Birdman to his stage character, who kills himself in the end. On the last scene we see Birdman, however this is the first time when he is not talking to Keaton, finally birdman's time has come and Riggan is able to move on by flying and exploring uncharted territories of his own. He was finally able to let go of Birdman.
What are we doing here? – is the question asked by Michael (Ed Norton) to Sam (Emma Stone) at one point in the movie, which might just be the subtle sense of it all.