A Metamorfose dos Pássaros

Portugal's official entry to 2022's Oscars is a visually stunning documentary. Literally every frame of it is a masterpiece. It's emotional and compassionate but I couldn't connect to it. It's so philosophical and metaphorical, the monologues are so sophisticated which makes it annoying and hard to follow most of the time.

It's rare I find myself watching a film with no reviews here on IMDB, but when I do I always feel a duty to leave a few words, so here we are.

If I were to try compare The Metamorphosis of Birds to anything else it would have to be some of the more poetic films of the 60s and 70s, particularly The Color of Pomegranites, but with a dash of one of Wes Anderson's family sagas thrown in for good measure.

The film is told entirely in voiceover: an unseen narrator, the reminiscences of grown-up children, the letters going back and forth between a sailor and his wife back home... and accompanied by some rich and striking images. This scaffolding perhaps weakens and limits its power, as everything is being depicted at a distance, and so what story there is can feel a little tedious at times. The great majority of shots are of things other than human faces, and it's hard to connect very deeply with anyone onscreen. It can occasionally feel more like a slideshow of fantastical photography with an accompanying lecture.

Nevertheless, it remains a very handsome, tightly-constructed and thoughtful film, and certainly worth a look, even if only the once.

It's rare that you are simply overcome by beauty and you weep intensely because of it. This film is a symphony and perfect choreography of words, images sounds and universal feelings.

Writing this during the end credits and I feel I cannot grasp the immensity of what this film has risen in me.

The title of this review says it all. When I started to watch this film, it provided me with different multitude of sensations. It seemed like a poetic expression of camera, every scene creates an abstract art. No real dialogues between characters, only consisting of monologues of those characters portrayed in that film. This is a story of a family consisting of eight members, six of them are the children of Henriquez and Beatriz. The story is told through showcasing the nature and how it works, how we all related to the nature itself.

The most alluring thing about this movie is bold work of cinematography. Every frame is static and the objects in that frame moves so delicately that it creates some emotions to the viewers' minds. Every monologues of this film expresses the philosophy of life by comparing them with nature. It is an unorthodox form of storytelling through visual medium and I have to say, this is very bold one indeed!

This is the most compelling film I have seen for a long time. Every word, gesture, framing, is perfectly judged. It is impossible to summarise or adequately describe. I strongly advise all lovers of film to watch this.