Birdy (1984)

.This is a very thought-provoking, sadly over-looked film that was made back in 1984. It's a crying shame that "Birdy" never got the bravado it deserved then and now simply and I never really understood why. I mean it's well-focused, the characters are endearing and the film itself stands on its own above over-rated and convoluted films that depends on CGI and high-budgeted goodies.It's primary focus is centred on the camaraderie between of two buddies Al Columbato (Nicolas Cage in one of his earliest starring roles) who has recently been returned home from the horrors of the Vietnam War. However his friend Birdy (an outstanding Matthew Modine) who was left hospitalized under psychological evaluation. The opening half of the movie runs at a snail's pace as Al pays a visit to Birdy as he attempts to revive his sanity by going through flashbacks to their teenage years.As the story progresses, Birdy's past is starting to take form and the viewer starts to observe is compassion and curious fixation with birds, that continually increase to epic proportions as he rapidly decreases his association with people and what he's gone through. Birdy now lives in his own world and the only touch of reality he has is his friend who's making strives to get a better understanding of his mind and how it's working.Director Alan Parker expertly touches upon a myriad of touching subjects all into one film. It deals with issues like isolation, questioning one's sanity, how friendship is put to the test, insubordination and connections. Parker succeeds in refraining from making these characters melancholy and grim by making it sincere in studying the characters primarily on the two leads (Cage and Modine). Modine was very believable as the weak and vulnerable Birdy who has strangely adapted to his new world and oblivious to the world in which he lives now.The film also has a gripping coming of age scenario as well Parker avoids from using clichés and we see a simple honest bonding between two friends. The slow pace was a benefit for the development of the characters and the cinematography adds the perfect touch to the creepy and unpredictable mood to the story.and at times some scenes are hard to adjust making the atmosphere quite uncomfortable."Birdy" should be highly recommended and has plenty to offer. It's recommended to those you may know who have felt different, a social outcast to society and how it feel when the world out there never fully understand who you really are. It's frustrating and this movie succeeds in exhibiting the kind of predicament everyone may have experienced in their lifetime.

I had great expectations for this Alan Parker movie that I have been meaning to watch for years. In my opinion, it is a classic that everybody should watch once but I also have mixed feelings about it. The plot is fairly simple. When 2 childhood friends come back from Vietnam among the casualties, one has lost it, the other is disfigured and will try to connect to his friend and bring him back from the crazies. In terms of harsh topics, Birdy is no testing ground for Parker. With this movie, the director deals with post-war mental and physical trauma as well as the struggle to fit in as a high schooler. On one hand, the combination of the Peter Gabriel-made soundtrack and the flying camera shots really convinced me. On the other, I thought it beats around the bush for quite a while. Nicolas Cage's monologues are a bit sketchy even though his overall performance is good. Matthew Modine makes a convincing quiet and deranged bird-lover. As I'm no war-movie enthusiast, I appreciate the fact that Birdy only shows a few war scenes. The plot is largely based on childhood flashbacks. Birdy is a good movie and I get satisfaction and personal pride to have watched it. 1 reason to watch: very few war scenesRead it here: http://squeerelist.blogspot.com/2013/06/birdy-1984.html

Birdy is a young man growing up in Philadelphia in the nineteen-sixties who is obsessed with birds and thoughts of flight. He and his friend Al are sent to fight in Vietnam but are shipped back with both physical and mental wounds. As Birdy withdraws into a silent catatonia, can Al bring him out of his dream world ?Based on a book by William Wharton, this tender character study of friendship, madness and the haunting effects of war is extremely well written and directed, and beautifully played by the two leads. How much you empathise with Birdy depends very much on your experiences I guess, but I find his devotion to learning to fly and his bewilderment at many of the ridiculous qualities of people very easy to identify with. He is a lunatic in the pure sense that as his obsession deepens the gulf between reality and his dreams doesn't matter to him, but he's a well-adjusted lunatic who understands other people but simply isn't interested in behaving like them. His concept that birds fly more through self-confidence and a respect for the properties of air (as opposed to more mundane issues like weight and velocity) is incredibly seductive and thought-provoking. The movie really makes you think about the damage society does to people, both on an everyday suburban level (Birdy's mother, Al's father) and a historical/global level (the horrors of combat). If it has a flaw it's that the lengthy scenes in the military sanitarium are grey, talky and inevitably one-sided, in sharp contrast to the vivid slice-of-life sections in Philly, all of which are full of humour and pathos (the dog-hunting sequence is particularly gleeful and horrible). Overall however it's extraordinarily beautiful - Michael Seresin's photography is haunting and absorbing, lingering over dark blue spaces and dirty backyards or soaring skyward as Birdy escapes into his fantasies. Equally powerful is Peter Gabriel's brooding, rich, esoteric sequencer music which (uniquely in film scoring history I think) was culled, reconceived and re-recorded from samples of songs from his previous two studio albums. The music lurks around every scene, mewling and pulsing like some animated force, providing a voice for Birdy's voiceless inner state. Cage and Modine are both excellent, with a fine support cast and a great troupe of animal actors who duly receive prominent credits - this must be the only film to employ a stunt canary. There were a slew of 'Nam films made in the mid-eighties (Hamburger Hill, Platoon, Gardens Of Stone) and whilst this fits that category it's about much more than just what's now referred to as post-traumatic stress disorder. It's about searching for an escape from everything, a point of view which brings extreme clarity and which no-one else can attain. A fine drama.

Imagine a movie where one of the main characters is highly annoying and inscrutable, and the other main character is average, boring and yet also inscrutable. Now imagine they're best friends even though the annoying one doesn't really seem to give a damn and the average one has no understandable reason for his apparent deep love for the annoying one. Throw in some facial bandages on Nic Cage (I guess they want to take his face off) and random scenes of animal abuse, you and you have Birdy. This movie is mostly charmless and pointless. Even the score, which was composed by Peter Gabriel, sounds like some rinker dink low talent crap. This score suits the movie, it's lame and unmemorable. I guess the music did sometimes bring a heightened tension to things; even though nothing would actually happened in a scene, the thudding drum beats still quickened my heart rate a little.I don't have many good things to say about Birdy. It was slightly interesting at points. Nic Cage did a fairly good job of delivering a relatively normal character, but the story gave the character so little motive or meaning. The ending could have been worse /Spoilers/ I actually liked that Birdy didn't "fly" to his death, even though that would have been a rather fitting way to end the character, it would have been depressing and just made the movie seem like an even bigger waste of time. /End Spoilers/Mainly this movie annoyed and bored me. I was unable to relate to much of anything. Certain animal scenes disturbed and troubled me. I don't feel there is much point to this movie. So unless you just like watching an obsessed birder get freaky or you just really want to see Nicolas Cage play what may be his most restrained role, I recommend you skip Birdy.