Like A Vietnam Vet On The Wire
The Age
Thursday February 15, 1996
BIRDY.
Encore, 3pm Foxtel/Galaxy.
DIRECTOR Alan Parker won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes when Birdy was released in 1985. The film also gained rave reviews for the performances of its young stars Matthew Modine and Nicholas Cage.
Time has dimmed neither their roles, nor the impact of this powerful metaphor about the personal ravages of war. William Wharton's novel, upon which the film is based, was originally set in World War II, but Parker has moved it to Vietnam to make it more relevant to the times and younger audiences. The plot suffers little from the transition as the theme is timeless and universal: how war destroys young lives.
If there was any doubt, there are plenty of examples of Vietnam vets still suffering the effects of saving the world from communism.
The film's action takes place in an American army veterans' hospital, where Birdy (Modine) crouches in his room, having retreated into silence, apart from making bird noises. In Birdy's fantasy world, freedom is the ability to soar above daily concerns and pain and to fly like a bird. Cage plays Al, his GI buddy who has been asked by an army psychiatrist to help bring Birdy back to reality. Al, who has trouble controlling his violent tendencies, has also been scarred by his Vietnam experiences.
Parker makes full use of flashbacks to the war and the brutalisation that Al and Birdy experienced in Vietnam. To heighten the contrast, he goes even further back to their carefree lives and loves in working-class Philadelphia before they went to war.
At times violent, at times psychologically harrowing, this is not an easy film, but one that holds one's attention all the way, as it delves into dark places and tortured minds.
© 1996 The Age
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