Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is back to the lagoon city with an opening movie in competition screened at the ongoing 71th edition of the Venice film festival.

During an interview with Xinhua, the Mexican director explained the idea behind the movie which was quite well received by the critics during the press screening.

The movie is about a very successful actor who is trapped in his old commercial role as the super hero "Birdman", the protagonist "powerfully" interpreted by Michael Keaton tries to escape from his old reputation to put on a Broadway theater stage a very demanding play.

He will have to fight against his ego, an invasive omnipresent voice, but also with the critics and an another ambitious actor played by Edward Norton, in the cast we find also Emma Stone, Amy Ryan and Naomi Watts.

Inarritu was honored for the movie Biutiful (2010) with the Oscar and Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Actor nomination for Javier Bardem.

Talking about the story, he said "I wanted to do a film about the ego and the fact that we, and not only the actors, are all fighting against our ego. The ego is misleading us on our true basic needs, it tells us that we need admiration from the others while in reality we just need affection. This film wants to be a reflection about the fight of a man against his ego."

His protagonist lives in a dilemma, an interior battle common for an actor and the movie director explains that since cinema was created there were always been a sort of "battle" between the cinema and the theater actors.

"On theater the actors have more acting talent and histrionic characteristics but they are less popular on the other hand in cinema you are more famous and with less ability on stage." He said.

He underlines then how external powers could negative influence the ego, he said" The power of media, politics and economy and everything related to a strong public exposures it's an exasperation of the ego and it can happen that the ego can prevail and gain the power on the person ending up destroying that person."

The movie investigates also the role of social network and the popularity that they can bring, he said. "About myself I'm not against the social networks but it' s 50 years that I don't use it and I will continue on this track. I don't want to have a new form of dependence and I also don't have time for it."

The Mexican moviemaker thinks then there is a risk of manipulation or alteration of the reality, today we have these "big truths" and the opinions of everybody that are exposed in any form so sometimes it's difficult to get to the truth. The reality can be distorted by everybody.

The role of author's cinema and festival is very important for him, he explained "the main problem is that the good cinema is not reaching the mass public because the audience was "on diet" and they lost the way to enjoy the different flavors."

He continued "Then the good cinema is not distributed and the festivals are the very chance and hope for this kind of distribution."

On the conclusion of the story Inarritu thinks that if the ending part of the movie is open for hope or not this depends to different sensibility of the public, it can be interpreted as a final capitulation or as a redemption act.

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)