Charles Burnett's 1978 masterpiece Killer of Sheep has several incredibly striking images. However, few are as evocative as the recurring sight of children leaping across rooftops. Journalist Juliet Clark interpreted this sequence as showing how adolescents "achieve a mobility that eludes their elders." It’s a reading that’s always stuck in my mind, especially given how vividly Burnett depicts everyday working-class struggles in Sheep. These youngsters temporarily soar across the sky. Meanwhile, the movie's grown-ups are grounded onto firmly mundane frustrating matters like making enough money to feed two kids or trying to purchase a car engine.
Clark’s interpretation returned to my psyche while watching Andrea Arnold’s Bird. Here, the eyes of 12-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams) always return to winged creatures like butterflies and especially various birds (like crows or seagulls). She is confined to the rigors of her domestic life. These animals, though, can spread their wings and take to the sky. Like those kids sprinting across rooftops in Killer of Sheep, winged critters represent in Bird an idyllic level of flexibility. When one’s life is riddled with torment, how you can not gaze to the skies and wish you too could just dash away from your surroundings?
Residing in Kent, England, Bailey lives out her days with her father Bug (Barry Keoghan), older brother Hunter (Jason Buda), and Bug's fiancée Kayleigh (Frankie Box). She’s got a strained relationship with her family, particularly with her dad. Bug's more interested in secreting juices from a toad or wedding plans than he is in his daughter. Surrounded by graffiti-stained walls and lots of crime, Bailey and other youngsters in her age range feel hopeless. This inspires Hunter and his mates to create a vigilante group taking down malicious figures in the community.
A cycle of carnage is swirling around Bailey when she falls asleep in a field. After snoozing, she awakens to see horses and a 30-something-year-old man named Bird (Franz Rogowski). A soft-spoken fellow wielding a backpack, a skirt, and a friendly expression, Bird is immediately pleasantly inquisitive about Bailey's life. Initially untrustworthy of this newcomer, Bailey grows fond of Bird and decides to help him in his quest. Turn out he grew up around here and is searching for the parents he can barely remember. Bird is a parable about a youngster hardened by the world burdened with too much knowledge. She then encounters a softer, youthful adult who barely remembers anything.
They’re an odd pair. They also become the kind of friends they each need right now.
For Bird, Arnold unites with cinematographer Robbie Ryan for the sixth time. Their visual collaboration this go-around involves shooting Bird on 16mm in a 1.66:1 aspect ratio. The pair really lean into lived-in visual sensibilities with this shooting style, including retaining fascinating imperfections on various frames. Sometimes, the corners or bottom levels of Bird's images look like they're covered up with debris or various film-based artifacts. Speaking of corners, Bird’s aspect ratio is executed with slightly rounded-out corners on each frame. It’s like Arnold and Ryan want a typical shot to exude the claustrophobia of Bailey’s life and the softness (within those corners) of Bird.
This distinctive flourish functions as a less extreme version of cinematographer Maria von Hausswolff's unforgettable framing for Hlynur Pálmason's excellent feature Godland. Unfortunately, not all of Bird’s visual sensibilities channel the power of Maria von Hausswolff. An insistence on shaky-cam to capture various scenes of Bailey on the move evokes countless 2000s found footage movies that left me nauseous. There’s clear intent behind the relentless camera movement in these intense sequences. However, the execution remains a mixed bag, especially since it feels like a generic way to accentuate tension.
Even when Arnold and Ryan’s visual sensibilities lean too heavily on the familiar, there’s a beating lived-in heart to their images. Bailey's world doesn't feel like a hollow simulacrum of poverty. Nor is it draped in the limited color schemes and repetitive lighting plaguing other movies chronicling folks at the bottom of the economic totem pole. Bright beams of light cascade down in Bailey’s life. Vivid hues often dominate spaces like the interior of an apartment complex or at a big party Bug throws in his domicile. Bird doesn’t quite soar in its visual scheme. However, it certainly glides to interesting results.
Narratively, Arnold's Bird screenplay demonstrates a willingness to embrace more dream-like digressions. Grueling depictions of poverty and heightened flourishes can co-exist in the same sequence. It’s a quality echoing how Bird’s images can oscillate between stand 1.66:1 framing and a tighter vertical-oriented aspect ratio reflecting what videos captured on Bailey’s phone look like. Also like with the visuals, this writing approach is messy but also admirably audacious. Merging together these disparate storytelling sensibilities distinctively captures how fractured Bailey’s troubled home life is.
One consistent across these narrative and visual impulses is some strong performances. This includes Nykiya Adams demonstrating remarkable believability and gravitas in handling such weighty material at a young age. Often playing opposite Adams is Barry Keoghan, who I suppose is technically old enough to play fathers in movies. Seems like just yesterday he was the young weirdo slurping spaghetti in The Killing of a Sacred Deer! Keoghan brings his trademark intensity to Bug. That quality truly solidifies the uncomfortable domestic life Bailey exists in. What’s extra impressive, though, is whenever Keoghan displays a tangible moving paternal quality within Bug.
These flashes come and go sporadically throughout Bird. Whenever they appear, though, Keoghan makes Bug’s affection for his kids feel like an organic extension of the more flawed man that often unnerves Bailey. It’s a nuanced performance further reaffirming Keoghan's tremendous talents. He and Adams excel in a movie that didn’t quite captivate my soul emotionally like I wanted. Maybe it’s just the shaky-cam, the generic animal-based symbolism, or the ubiquity of recent European movies about daughters struggling to connect with their younger fathers (see also: Scrapper, Aftersun). Even so, Andrea Arnold’s latest movie is a creatively audacious exercise worth watching, especially for fans of either Keoghan. Any motion picture conjuring up Killer of Sheep memories has to be doing something right.