After Red Road (2006), Fish Tank (2009), et American Honey (2016), Bird confirms the coherence of the filmography of the British director who could be seen as a feminine Ken Loach. Like the latter, awarded several times at the Cannes Film Festival, Andrea Arnold is one of the rare representatives of a talented overseas cinema, but which is becoming rarer.
Empathetic with her characters, but without ever falling into excess or lyricism, with a very observant and sensitive eye, the filmmaker renews herself with Bird which comes out in theaters on Wednesday January 1, 2025.
Andrea Arnold's films are often portraits of young women, where the plots reveal their personalities. They are obsessed with a man lost sight of in Red Roadrebellious teenager in Fish Tank or marginal on American roads in American Honey. The filmmaker changes sides in Birdwhere she focuses on a boy caught at the age when maturity begins. With extreme psychological sensitivity, Andrea Arnold ends up in Bird to a poetry of everyday life which veers into the fantastic in its last part.
In Kent, Great Britain, Bailey, 12, lives with his younger brother Hunter in more or less legal social housing, both raised by their father Bug (cockroach in English), separated from their mother. Left to his own devices, Bailey will meet Bird (bird in English), a strange young man, possessor of a power which will push him into another dimension.
Very realistic in her films, for which she wrote all the scripts, Andrea Arnold paradoxically borders on the fantastic, as her heroines go through destabilizing experiences. She changes her gear in Bird with Bailey, an endearing and devoted boy, from Indo-Pakistani immigration, who takes care of his little brother whom he takes everywhere. At school, he is a bit of a bully in the class, but he feels the blow with hindsight, solitary, but whole and responsible. His meeting with Bird, this young man who came out of nowhere, is like a gift from heaven that will change his life.
Anchored in the daily life of an unprepossessing suburb, Bird shifts into fantasy in its last half hour. A break in tone that we did not expect from the British director, but perfectly articulated with what precedes. Is this meeting real or fantasized by Bailey? Is Bird an imaginary friend, revealing a shift into schizophrenia? We'll never really know. But this meeting will guide the boy towards a new life, at a pivotal age that Andrea Arnold captures with art.
Genre : Drama
Director: Andrea Arnold
Actors: Barry Keoghan, Franz Rogowski, Nykiya Adams
Pays : Great Britain/France/USA/Germany
Duration : 1h59
Sortie : Wednesday January 1, 2025
Synopsis : At 12, Bailey lived with his brother Hunter and his father Bug, who raised them alone in a squat in north Kent. Bug doesn't have much time for them, and Bailey, approaching puberty, seeks attention and adventure elsewhere.
