The Metamorphosis of Birds

The Metamorphosis of Birds (A Metamorfose dos Pássaros) is a 2020 Portuguese film directed by Catarina Vasconcelos, blurring the lines between documentary, cinema, and drama. It is a poetic exploration of life, death, and familial relationships, particularly the nuanced perspectives of mothers, fathers, and daughters on existence and legacy.

The film uses stunning, dialogue-free visuals to weave a narrative about renewal and the inevitability of mortality. Through its meditative imagery and introspective tone, it invites viewers to ponder the beauty and fragility of life. However, its unconventional storytelling and slow pace may not appeal to all audiences.

While the film is undeniably thought-provoking, it leans heavily on abstract symbolism and artistic expression, which may resonate deeply with some but feel inaccessible or unengaging to others. As someone who reflected on its themes but didn't fully connect with it, I can appreciate its artistry without being captivated by its style.

The narrative is very very good. It has a dose of portugalismo all over. The images are like canvas. You could easily imagine that u are watching the movie at a gallery. Spoiler: it has nothing to do with birds. It's a metaphor. If you like. If you enjoy Terrence malick give this a chance.

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.

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!

"When you can't remember, invent"

An astonishing piece of art, beautifully composed images, each one like a painting itself, A perfect symphony of all things that is cinema.