BIRDSONG (EL CANT DELS OCELLS) World Cinema

Albert Serra emerged as a major talent with HONOR DE CAVALLERIA, a retelling of Cervantes’s Quixote. BIRDSONG, the Spanish director’s second film, follows three ancient kings as they follow signs, omens and angels toward their destination: the birth of a child they believe is the messiah. The story is framed by a succession of dazzling, mysterious block-and-white landscape images. The three Catalan -speaking kings (Lluis Corbo, Lluis Serrot-both from HONOR-with Lluis Serrot Batlle) walk endlessly through the wide, static shots. They rarely discuss their destination or the miraculous events they ore participating in, though when they do their conversations ore charming and funny. Instead, they focus their attention on the some things we might: Are we going in the right direction? Con we find somewhere more comfortable to sleep? Finally, they find a woman with a newborn child, on event accompanied by on extraordinary burst of music (Pou Casals’s composition, based on a Catalan folk song, “El contdelsocells”) And their arduous journey continues. A rare, gorgeous film that summons both the spirituality of Bresson or Dreyer and the absurdity of Beckett, BIRDSONG finds ways of representing the mysterious without erasing the mystery.