You can't watch "The Ornithologist" as a traditional movie. You have to instead approach it as you would a poem, just opening yourself up to sensations and images to see what they might say to you.
I can and have really enjoyed this kind of movie watching -- I'm thinking of a film like "Last Year at Marienbad" or any number of David Lynch's movies. But they have to be done extremely well to work, and "The Ornithologist" just isn't.
The motifs in this film are largely either sexual or religious/spiritual. A bird watcher finds himself lost in the wilderness when his canoe capsizes. He's captured by two fellow hikers who intend to castrate him as part of some strange ritual, but he escapes. He comes across some random dude and has sex with him on the beach before stabbing him. He comes across some other dudes dressed like birds and engaging in some kind of midnight bacchanalia. Toward the end, the actor playing this man is replaced by the actual film's director. Along the way, the director shows shot after shot of birds when he seemingly has nothing else to do or say, and sometimes we even get shots of the protagonist from the birds' perspectives.
Of course one will be tempted to impose meaning on all of this randomness and will probably be frustrated by the film's resistance to making that task easy. I was fine just going along for the ride, but once I realized this film wasn't saying much to me, I gave up on it and stopped caring much about anything happening on screen. It doesn't help that I'm not a remotely religious person, and that the strong religious themes in the movie meant nothing to me. Perhaps someone who is more interested in the big questions surrounding God and faith would find more to enjoy, but I'll never know.
Grade: D
I can and have really enjoyed this kind of movie watching -- I'm thinking of a film like "Last Year at Marienbad" or any number of David Lynch's movies. But they have to be done extremely well to work, and "The Ornithologist" just isn't.
The motifs in this film are largely either sexual or religious/spiritual. A bird watcher finds himself lost in the wilderness when his canoe capsizes. He's captured by two fellow hikers who intend to castrate him as part of some strange ritual, but he escapes. He comes across some random dude and has sex with him on the beach before stabbing him. He comes across some other dudes dressed like birds and engaging in some kind of midnight bacchanalia. Toward the end, the actor playing this man is replaced by the actual film's director. Along the way, the director shows shot after shot of birds when he seemingly has nothing else to do or say, and sometimes we even get shots of the protagonist from the birds' perspectives.
Of course one will be tempted to impose meaning on all of this randomness and will probably be frustrated by the film's resistance to making that task easy. I was fine just going along for the ride, but once I realized this film wasn't saying much to me, I gave up on it and stopped caring much about anything happening on screen. It doesn't help that I'm not a remotely religious person, and that the strong religious themes in the movie meant nothing to me. Perhaps someone who is more interested in the big questions surrounding God and faith would find more to enjoy, but I'll never know.
Grade: D