Fernando, ein einsamer Ornithologe, befindet sich gerade auf der Suche nach Schwarzstörchen, als er von den Stromschnellen weggerissen wird. Schließlich wird er von einer Gruppe chinesischer... Alles lesenFernando, ein einsamer Ornithologe, befindet sich gerade auf der Suche nach Schwarzstörchen, als er von den Stromschnellen weggerissen wird. Schließlich wird er von einer Gruppe chinesischer Pilger gerettet. Beim Versuch, wieder den richtigen Weg zu finden, gerät er jedoch immer ... Alles lesenFernando, ein einsamer Ornithologe, befindet sich gerade auf der Suche nach Schwarzstörchen, als er von den Stromschnellen weggerissen wird. Schließlich wird er von einer Gruppe chinesischer Pilger gerettet. Beim Versuch, wieder den richtigen Weg zu finden, gerät er jedoch immer tiefer in einen dunklen und unheimlichen Wald.
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- Drehbuch
- Hauptbesetzung
- Auszeichnungen
- 21 Gewinne & 46 Nominierungen insgesamt
- Caçadora Loira
- (as Juliane Elting)
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Oh, before I forget, it's a religious-themed film, in fact, it could not be missed. It is always pertinent to poke the jaguar with the short stick, right?
It is another collaboration with João Rui Guerra da Mata, art director, screenwriter, and finally, filmmaker, who always works on Rodrigues' films.
Fernando, an atheist from the word go, embarks on his stork-scouting journey with gusto and alacrity, and the implication that it is not his first sortie in the area makes his adventure quite up his alley. Few background information is purveyed, other than he is under medication and has a male lover who is caring for him. Contrasting Fernando's bird-watching/telescopic angle with different bird's-eye views, it is the modus operandi brings home a numinous frisson of watching and simultaneously being watched, literally sublimates the nature's gaze with a plethora of wild feathered friends hovering around incessantly through the film. When Fernando's kayak is upset during the rapids, the story starts to take shape into a multi-layered religious mythology through Fernando's various real/surreal encounters, garnished with sexual innuendos (undressed and tied- up by two young Chinese female God-bothers, a sadomasochistic position enticing one's fantasy; the urolagnia experience in the darkness among a contingent of masqueraded roarers), and an in- the-buff dalliance with a deaf-mute shepherd boy named Jesus (Cagiao), which ends in manslaughter, a startling incident but concocted with blasé wantonness.
Conceivably, when one liquidates Jesus, there is nothing but a road to redemption beckons him, Fernando must carry on his mythical transmogrification into a pious St. Antony by dint of his self- inflicted ritual for absolution (that is where symbolic tunnel, tableaux vivants and inscrutable gestures abound), consummated by being dispatched by the alter ego of Jesus, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, if credits must be given to Rodrigues' wheeze of contemplating a grand mythos within an entrancing temporal sphere, his didactic exegesis is less a merit to be reckoned with.
Leading actor Paul Hamy credibly shoulders on a role which requires boldness and physical exertion, instils his open-faced earthiness into the overlaying mystique and alone-in-the-woods background, which successfully retains Fernando in the cynosure, even when narrative longueur inevitably lurks. Tellingly, the film renders a captivating landscape to those eyes yearning for natural's majestic design, whether it is the picturesque on the surface or the uncanny residing in the deep, also the foley artists (Nuno Carvalho and Martin Delzescaux) ply their own distinctive aural intrusion to that latter effect: eerie, preternatural and strident. In the end of the day, THE ORNITHOLOGIST is another contrived fable trying to mythicize religion in order to elicit a sense of meta-sanctity of our own existence, but the fruition thuddingly slumps between artsy-fartsy and nonplussing, on top of that, where are the storks, anyway?
While possibly the director's most accessible film to date, calling this visually striking work "accessible" doesn't mean most audiences will fully understand Rodrigues' delightfully meandering paths, nor appreciate his homoerotic, playfully blasphemous modernised hagiography.
Religious conservatives will be as apoplectic as they were with Godard's "Hail Mary," but art-house lovers, including those not always in sync with the "To Die Like a Man" helm-er's style should find much pleasure, even if they're perplexed by what it all means.
Narratively, the film gets even more bizarre. A Latin-speaking Amazon (performance artist Juliane Elting, whose stage moniker pays fantastic tribute to Julian Eltinge) calls Fernando by the name Anthony, and by the time he meets Jesus' identical twin brother, Thomas, actor Hamy has been replaced by director Rodrigues.
Visually, "The Ornithologist" is Rodrigues' most classically shot film, and the first entirely lenses outdoors. Regular collaborator Rui Poças brings out the richness of the forest and river canyon in all its natural splendours, at times almost hinting at a European version of the sylvan spirit of Thai magical realism rather than the lurid spectacle of the director's "The Last Time I Saw Macao." Unsurprisingly given both the title and the director's academic training, avian scenes are lovingly realised and a constant source of wonder.
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- WissenswertesPaul Hamy, who played the lead Fernando, is a French actor. The director and writer João Pedro Rodrigues dubbed much of Fernando's dialogue.
- VerbindungenFeatured in The Story of Film: A New Generation (2021)
- SoundtracksCanção do Engate
Performed by António Variações
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Box Office
- Bruttoertrag in den USA und Kanada
- 50.511 $
- Eröffnungswochenende in den USA und in Kanada
- 6.132 $
- 25. Juni 2017
- Weltweiter Bruttoertrag
- 74.714 $
- Laufzeit1 Stunde 57 Minuten
- Farbe
- Seitenverhältnis
- 2.35 : 1