Événement

BIRD SONG (EL CANT DELS OCELLS) - ALBERT SERRA

BIRDSONG
(aka EL CANT DELS OCELLS)
dir. Albert Serra, 2008
92 mins.
In Catalan with English subtitles.

MONDAY, APRIL 3 7:30PM
FRIDAY, APRIL 14 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, APRIL 29 7:30 PM

Serras sophomore feature revels in the unknowability of its chosen subjects: the Three Wise Men indicated here (Lluís Carbó, Lluís Serrat Batlle and Lluís Serrat) are at once the hallowed sages indicated by Christmas lore and yet, furthermore, bumbling and oafish to a point of extreme lovability. Serras locations (Iceland, the Canary Islands) lend an otherwise titter-worthy comic travelogue with unspeakable, sacrosanct beauty. Also featuring legendary Canadian film critic Mark Peranson as Josef!

Serras emboldened enough to puncture his formalism with humor, and knows how to elevate his material control to the level of the ineffable. Jeff Reichert, IndieWire

In a manner reminiscent of Tarkovskys insistence that the dominant, all-powerful factor of the film is rhythm, expressing the course of time within the frame, Serra elongates our sense of duration, liberating filmic time from the abstraction of intensified continuity or montage. Movement is slowed to a stage at which it becomes barely perceptible, and our intermittent awareness of the modulation of mise-en-scène marks the passage of time within the shot. Dramatic time is halted and reclaimed for us to engage with and reflect on our sensitivity to light and sound. Matthew Flanagan, 16:9