Arguable the best independent movie of the year!

Rating: 10/10 (15 January 2015)

There always has been a form of competitiveness between film and theater actors. Theater actors would often say that film actor performance depends on the editing, where in theater you need to be able to maintain the character for the duration of the whole play and maintain it every night for however long the play runs. Also the amount of dialog which needs to be learned by head in theater is mostly larger then in film, where director is trying to show the story and not tell it verbally, so to speak. Often cutting unnecessary lines from the script as much as possible to keep it visual. Theater and film are just two different mediums which need two different techniques of the narrative acting expression. In theater the contact with the live audience can be very rewarding indeed, but often the theater actors have a movie star aspiration and they feel like they would love to be immortalized on the silver screen forever. On the other hand you have movie actors who in the twilight of their careers comeback to the theater to see if they still got it. It is always best when actor does theater and film work respectively, which keeps him artistically balanced. Alejandro González Iñárritu's "Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance" might be right up there with "Boyhood" as this years best independent movie, which has received numerous Oscar Nomination including Best Film, Actor, and Supporting cast, etc. The last few years Michael Keaton has not been working much, therefor it is such a pleasure to see him taking upon himself such a complex, honest and multilayered performance, as the washed up actor known for a comic book franchise 'Birdman', which obviously is inspired by his performance in the Tim Burton versions of the cape crusader "Batman". He is trying to jump start his career by writing, directing and staring in his own play on Broadway. The amount of pressure on his shoulders is unbearable considering that his co-star played brilliantly by Edward Norton tries to sabotage the whole endeavor, as well as Keaton's inability to differentiate between what is real and what is imagined does not make things easier. The whole film is shoot, in what appears to be one continuous shot which in itself is a very hard thing to accomplish. This is not only difficult on the filmmakers, to connect the scenes through invisible wipes (sideways or vertical movement of the camera that blends two scenes together seamlessly), but also puts actors in very hard place, where they often have to deliver up to 15 pages of dialog and hit all the blocking, focus marks, for the scene to work properly. Thrust me, this is very difficult thing to do and only few filmmakers in history where successful in doing so. Alfred Hitchcock with his movie "Rope" immediately comes to mind as well as more arty and extremely disturbing Caspar Noe's "Irreversible" which contains uncut continuous anal rape scene, which already passed on to the movie history books, as one of the most rough and realistic rape scenes in cinematic history. Coming back to the "Birdman", as you watching it, there is a sense that Alejandro González Iñárritu delivered something very special. The reality of the performances creates the feeling like the audience are watching an actual real events unfolding, sometimes interrupted by Michael Keaton's internal and to some extent schizophrenic dialog between him and the character that brought him film related fame the Birdman. I think Michael Keaton delivers, what might be arguably his best performance to date. His willingness to showcase his inner self, to dive in to complex character of an aging star, creates in us feeling of endearment towards him as we all wish him to succeed. He often mumbles and delivers lines in very unorthodox manner which brings back to memory a genius of Marlon Brando at times. He is well supported by Edward Norton who also gets emotionally and physically naked here. The scenes of them together are some of the best in the film. Norton's confession towards Emma Stone's character who is playing Keaton's jaded daughter, about the fact that the only time he does not pretend is on the stage, creates sense of intimacy and honesty which obviously has been noticed this year by Academy which nominated Norton for an Oscar for supporting role. But this film is much more then just two man show. All the supporting cast did really well including Naomi Watts, Zach Galifianakis and Andrea Riseborough. Watching the "Birdman" I must say the filmmaker inside me was trying to figure out where did boom operator and sound technician placed microphones for clean recording of the sound. This is also one of the categories "Birdman" was nominated for Sound Editing. For some reason, stylistically, watching it, I was reminded of Charlie Kaufman's type movies like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", "Being John Malkovich" and "Adaptation". If you liked the surreal style of above mentioned movies, then I am pretty sure the "Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance" will be also to your liking, arguable the best independent movie of the year.
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