This seductive and playful retelling of the life of St Anthony of Padua, set in a jungle in northern Portugal, recalls the work of Apichatpong Weerasethakul
At certain moments in this dreamily erotic, playfully baffling and beautifully shot movie, I found myself thinking of the naked Pan shepherd at the beginning of Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death. There is the same elusive sense of humour. The Ornithologist is highly diverting and seductive, a pastoral of sorts, and a secular meditation on faith and acceptance, very loosely derived from the life of St Anthony of Padua. However, it retreats into a kind of shaggy-dog whimsy by the end, and doesn’t entirely live up to its visionary promise.
A bird-watcher called Fernando (Paul Hamy) is looking for black storks in remote northern Portugal. Transfixed by the sight of them through his binoculars while kayaking, he incautiously...
At certain moments in this dreamily erotic, playfully baffling and beautifully shot movie, I found myself thinking of the naked Pan shepherd at the beginning of Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death. There is the same elusive sense of humour. The Ornithologist is highly diverting and seductive, a pastoral of sorts, and a secular meditation on faith and acceptance, very loosely derived from the life of St Anthony of Padua. However, it retreats into a kind of shaggy-dog whimsy by the end, and doesn’t entirely live up to its visionary promise.
A bird-watcher called Fernando (Paul Hamy) is looking for black storks in remote northern Portugal. Transfixed by the sight of them through his binoculars while kayaking, he incautiously...
- 10/5/2017
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
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