Der Ornithologe

The distinct individualism of João Pedro Rodrigues' worldview is turned inward via an unflaggingly intriguing poetical riff on the life of St. Anthony of Padua in "The Ornithologist."

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calls Fernando by the name Anthony, and by the time he meets Jesus' identical twin brother, Thomas, actor Hamy has been replaced by director Rodrigues.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.

"Fernando" (Paul Hamy) is out in the Portuguese wilderness doing a bit of birdwatching when he gets caught up in the rapids, his canoe is trashed and he finds himself rescued by two rather curious Chinese women - "Fei" (Han Wen) and her girlfriend "Ling" (Chan Suan). Things get a bit on the surreal side from this point as his journey continues and he next encounters the handsome, mute, goatherd "Jesus" (Xelo Cagiao) before a rather unfathomable tragedy ensues and the story takes on an almost fantastic nature that sees "Fernando" having to come to terms with his actions all under the supervision of a beautiful white dove that clearly has a more symbolic function as yet to be explained. Is he ever going to make it to civilisation? Does he really want to? It's quite a curious film, this, with no obvious purpose to it. Initially, it looks more like a natural history docudrama with some lovely photography of birds in their natural habitat and us (and him) as mere observers, but once his trip becomes less routine the story starts to head seriously off piste and becomes a bit too random for me. It's not that it isn't structured, it's that director João Pedro Rodrigues doesn't seem so bothered about taking us with him as his mind wanders for two hours of really quite eccentrically indulgent moviemaking. There's little rhyme-nor-reason to the second act, if you like, as "Fernando" discovers what looks like the abandoned garden from the late Michael Jackson's estate amidst the forest then some Amazonian type paintballers with Centaur aspirations! It's quirky and inquisitive about attitudes to faith - and not just 20th century faiths at that - and I did like the last five minutes, but on balance I found it quite a long watch to leave feeling slightly bamboozled.

When I came out of The Ornithologist I was totally perplexed and unsure of what I had just seen. At one point I thought it was a film about one man's descent into madness, at another I thought it was a tale of the mystery and spirituality of nature and the unknown, a film about loneliness and despair, then I thought maybe it was a character study of queerness and male sexuality. For all I know this film could be all of these things or none of them whatsoever.

Because I don't want to spoil anything - and because I can't describe what happens in this film without sounding like a lunatic, I'll say this: the film follows a solitary Ornithologist who gets lost in the forest and the increasingly strange things that happen to him as he tries to find his way home.

Funnily enough, The Ornithologist plays almost like a parody of an art-house film - and like most art-house, this is not a film for everyone. Consider yourself warned. In terms of its structure, the unfolding of its narrative as well as the way it uses images and sounds to unnerve and to hypnotize you - this is either going to infuriate or bewitch viewers. I can happily say that I was completely bewitched. I fell under its spell, it got under my skin in a way that I cannot describe and I couldn't stop thinking about it after I saw it. I am under no illusion that I understand most of what I saw, but watching it I could tell that this is exactly the film that director João Pedro Rodrigues wanted to make - it makes no compromises for anybody.

The Ornithologist is daring and strange - there are so many unanswered questions, and I couldn't possibly explain to you what it's about or what happens without sounding certifiably insane, but I am so fine with that - I was completely mesmerized. Give it a chance; you might hate it with every fiber of your being or you might love it and be as enchanted by it as I was.

Imagine if Robert Bresson and Walerian Borowczyk were a single person, a synthesis filmmaker. Now imagine that person is gay. Now imagine that person had a fever dream. That dream would be "The Ornithologist". (If you understood that sentence we're soulmates).

If you're in the market for a psycho-sexual erotic biblical parable that flirts with bondage, urination fetish, bestiality, and just good old fashion beautiful men rolling around naked on a beach, but, you know, all done in an artistically austere, under- emphasized way and then hazed into a hallucinatory mist of a story, then this is your jam right here.

What did I think of it?

I thought it was AWESOME!

One of the few (if not the only) films that can take so many leaps into the plot, instigating you to embrace the idea and watch until the end. The new film by João Pedro Rodrigues, a guy who has always embraced the theme "queer" in his work, because there are, yes, great films in the gay scene for the LGBT community made by him. One that I really enjoyed was "The Phantom" (2000). It's his, too; "Odete" (2005) and "The Last Time I Saw Macau" (2012). It's curious how your cinema breathes Pasolini (but it's not a comparison). I think Rodrigues, like Gregg Araki, Gus Van Sant and Pedro Almodóvar, citing my favorites, are real filmmakers who hover the flag. But none of them focuses exclusively on the subject as Rodrigues - who also proved to go to other ways with this film. "The Ornithologist" is a journey of self-discovery. A bucolic adventure of a hermit in the wild heart. With some terrifying and surreal passages. The ending is totally wrapped in mysteries (just like the whole movie) and open to various interpretations. Their cinema is not childish, so the drama is strengthened by maturity and always bring erotic situations and sex scenes without fear of the showing. Nudity here is the most curious point, especially in a movie that never shows, a priori, clues to anything, just makes it happen. But, as I said earlier, the swings are the big cheap of the tape. It's a plot-twist after another. It is an exotic, economical and creative production. Yes. "I'm recovering ..." The Portuguese also make a daring and original cinema. This is a real lesson in script and direction. The sensation is almost a trip without purposeful destiny. Is it really that Fernando wants to go home?

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.