Birdman Flies High With Controversiality, and Novelty

Rating: 8/10 (14 March 2015)

Most of them chose Boyhood, even I did in the first place. But then I watched Birdman again, and I saw what I had not earlier—Birdman flew very, very high. Sadly, people didn't notice either him or his flight.
The metaphorical and direct connotations of Birdman, or in fact Alejandro, were both comedic and moralistic. The drama hidden beneath the colloquial surface wasn't easy to decipher; it required immense analytical ability. Most of the audiences, while being mesmerized by the cinematography (Lubezki made it as if Birdman were filmed in one shot), found Birdman boring and yawn-making. This was partially because of the ambiguity it ended with, and partially because of the disguised curtain between superficiality and reality. None of them understood the subtle difference between the two. In fact, none of them could figure it out—did it end on "Birdman" or "man"? This ambiguity ruled Birdman out for some because they didn't think it was worth digging into. Well surely those people were wrong.
I internally confess that Birdman has a better screenplay that most movies in Oscars' archives. The Grand Budapest Hotel did defeat Birdman in BAFTAs but so far, it is Birdman that has successfully dominated hearts and minds of most analysts, given its realism, and intellectualized ambiguity (I know that sounds strange). The movie's end is what has become one of the controversial endings of all-time, and believe me, this ending has crossed the Inception and Interstellar thresholds—was it figment of Sam's imagination, or was it Riggan's freaking obsession, or was it the just-before-the-last-breath thingy? What did Birdman say? Surely it remarked upon the mental mingling that sustains in the inner-self of the highly stressed and freaked-out people, myself included. But was it a story of success, despair, or desperation? Even the screenwriters, while on HuffPost Live, said that the movie's ending is left to audiences' interpretation. This interpretation still needs to be figured out, and this unidentified interpretation won for Birdman the Oscar for "Best Original Screenplay".
The plot Birdman picked was entirely unpredictable, over-the-top, core-of-the-diversified-world, and actually-happening. We see people in our daily lives who are obsessed about the things they love, which in my case would be with film criticism and analysis. But in this edifice of unjust and ever-ticking world, nothing happens the way we plan, and although we eventually get accustomed to practicality, we have this idealistic flower inside ourselves that itch, so that we aloof ourselves from whatever hurdles we face, and go on with the undefined journey is ambiguous ways. This quest is so effectively portrayed that it boosts up consciousness and conscience. Scripts like Birdman do not exist; it's singular, and will remain so for a long, long time. While ordinary people were peeved off at it, I was not (although initially I was). Birdman didn't have competition, and so it legitimizes its win.
Birdman was the first runner-up in the chase, following Boyhood in all award ceremonies. It has remained the choice of novels, but Linklater's delicacy with the task-at-hand left everyone vulnerable to his directorial spell. Birdman remains one of a handful of movies that avoid any make-ups, or artificiality, in the film-making. The events of life, in both, were as close to realism as I am to keyboard at the moment—they were really happening. Although I said, and stand by the standpoint that Boyhood is banal, I espouse on the "fact" that the screenplay was too brilliant to be just ordinary, while being only ordinary, as paradoxical as it sounds. However, Birdman goes one step ahead by taking movie-viewers to the height of real-life experience of real, surreal, superficial and mental bundles and leaves us to doubt the existences of destiny, justice, fate, hard-work, and other so-called prolific elements of success.
Birdman follows a course from dramaturgical point of view that is completely unheard of. Alejandro allows such independence and flexibility (not fluctuation) in story-telling that doesn't speak the likes of most, even Kubrick for that matter. Most artists I know might twist and confuse, and deliberately antagonize audience to intensify the scenarios. Alejandro, on the contrary, speaks the human genome. This movie, unlike any other of '15, is made solely for critical thinkers, and the Academy-people have in a long time, agreed with me on the final call.