both absurd and completely terrifying, a film of massive intelligence and enthrallment

Rating: 10/10 (5 April 2007)

What a repeat viewing will bring: The Birds is Alfred Hitchcock's blockbuster entertainment that somehow can appeal to the "art-house" movie-goers as well. Meaning that even more than with Psycho, and certainly on a much grander and ambitious palette than North by Northwest, we have Hitchcock the grand ol' Master of Suspense for his mainstream fans, and at the same time gives an appeal to those who might consider themselves too high-minded to be considered part of the 'mainstream'. Meaning if you're in a coffee shop and on one end there's a group of teenagers and on the other end a couple of middle-aged psycho-therapists with numerous degrees, they could both be talking with similar depth &/or enthusiasm over the Birds. It's a work where the story gets set up very well: Tippi Hedren as the daughter of a high-ranking official (maybe a few brain cells and style-wise above Paris Hilton) in San Francisco who wants to get to know better a man, Mitch, who's from an island off the coast. She follows him down to the island only to be confronted by Mitch's mother (Jessica Tandy) as well as his sister. It's a little uncomfortable a situation in the sort of mother-son dynamic she rattles...but that's not all her presence seems to be incurring.
What unravels from there is sheer Hitchcock exploitation film-making- exploiting the audience's wildest fears- always with the most assured and inventiveness that one would expect. Several shots stick in one's memory, perhaps the greatest being the from-the-sky view of the fire that breaks out in the city, and then the seagulls that come into the foreground (point of view is put into question here, and it's a shot that works on both levels as mentioned before). As for the average horror fan, The Birds may work even more effectively than Psycho, despite its age shown in the bird attack scenes- which are nevertheless extraordinary in the usage of composite shots- because after the initial shock of the middle chunk of the film Hitchcock gets into something of a near zombie movie in the last third of the picture. Mitch barricades his mother, sister and Melanie in the house, only to have the rancor-loaded birds crashing head on to get at the house. Getting at what, who's to say? There's explanations that can be given, to be sure, but it may not even be necessary, it just is (one gets this amusingly from Hitchcock via the scene in the restaurant/bar with the town locals giving their drunken/angered/well-informed viewpoints).
When it comes down to it, The Birds is not entirely as emotionally disturbing or complex as Vertigo, and one might be reluctant to say that it is art because of its appeal on a commercial level. But art it is, conjured out of a premise that seems ridiculous yet made all the more prescient and startling through Hitchcock's ever-careful style, and specifically the lack of a traditional Herrmann musical score (albeit with his contribution as a sound-designer with the birds notwithstanding). By the last scene, one sees how what might have been a cheesy, trashy work by a lesser filmmaker out for cheap scares, becomes something of a bizarre, discomforting statement on nature versus human beings, or at least what can be capable of those we all take for granted. It's also a hell of a lot of fun for the whole family, more or less; watch for the school-yard singing as the birds swarm around the playground, later parodied wonderfully in High Anxiety.