Cannes 2024 (Competition): Bird (by Andrea Arnold) | Review
Andrea Arnold’s cinema is a sociology of toxic family ties. With Bird, the British filmmaker adds a welcome touch of the fantastic. And, surprisingly, it works.
Anatomy of a dysfunctional family. From film to film, Andrea Arnold continues to paint an increasingly exhaustive picture of these shaky family units, where the child, teenager, son or daughter is often far more mature – because they have no other choice – than their own parents. “Bird is no exception. Bird is the story of Bailey, a young teenager who lives with her father, Bug, and brother, Hunter, in a squat in North Kent (a county in England to the south-east of London). The mother, on the other hand, lives alone with another member of the family, and a violent lover.
Bailey suffocates, crushed by the weight of this unstable daily life. Bailey is 12, with her first period, no desire to wear a pink dress to her father’s (re)wedding to a new conquest, and a mad desire to cut her hair much shorter, which makes Bug howl. Bailey likes to wander alone in the surrounding meadows. It’s there, near a wild horse, that she meets “Bird”, a strange bird from who knows where, whom she initially welcomes with great reluctance, before gradually forming a beautiful friendship with him.
Bird is a powerful fable, an unclassifiable film with beauty at every turn. A feature film on the verge of documentary – Andrea Arnold loves to mix professional and amateur actors more than anything else – that even verges on the fantastic at times, with such brio that it leaves you breathless. Bird will make you cry, laugh, marvel and give you a hell of a lot of energy. My Palme d’Or of the heart, with a special mention for Franz Rogowski’s acting, which once again confirms just how outrageously talented he is.
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