20/05/2024 - CANNES 2024: British director Andrea Arnold competes for the Palme d’Or with a coming-of-age story that showcases both the beauty and the harshness of growing up in a Kent slum

Nykiya Adams in Bird

It seems that the works of British filmmaker Andrea Arnold have long been associated with social realism, to the point that the label has become shorthand to describe something that is intrinsically more complex than it is simply real. Arnold has constructed her human worlds that are socially truthful (and, often, working class), yes, but the political stakes are to be found in the human relationships. Her previous film, Cow [+see also:
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film profile], documented the animal world with the same attentiveness and care, but it has been a while since her last fiction feature. Eight years after American Honey [+see also:
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trailer
Q&A: Andrea Arnold
film profile] was awarded the Jury Prize, the Cannes Competition has welcomed Bird: a human-animal fable set in north Kent.

Bailey (Nikiya Adams) is 12 years old and lives with her father, Bug (Barry Keoghan), and brother Hunter (Jason Buda) in a squat; on the other side of town lives her mum, with her three other kids and an abusive boyfriend. But Bailey can’t do much about this set-up: this is how things are, difficult. Even on the cusp of teenhood, the protagonist already feels like she is carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. While other directors may treat all of this like a dire, hopeless premise, Arnold prefers to guide the viewer towards a richer, emotionally ambivalent microcosm where nothing is simple and, somehow, everything is beautiful. Seagulls, ravens, horses and foxes roam around, too, and one gets the feeling that the animals may know more than we suspect.

There is no roadmap to growing up, and Bailey has to navigate all of the obstacles by herself – her first period, dealing with her father’s upcoming wedding, and her own place in the community – until one morning, when she meets a stranger. When Bird (Franz Rogowski) comes skipping through the field where Bailey has spent the night, she whips out her phone, warning him to back away. In response, he smiles broadly and twirls around, revelling in the fact that she’s recording him. A mesmerising sense of ease washes over the screen every time Rogowski is in the frame, and it’s no wonder his ethereal presence leaves its mark on the teen – but not in the way one would expect.

Bird is deeply rooted in the harsh reality of violent words and cycles of familial trauma, as well as in the mystical bonds that bind humans to animals: in these crossovers, the film finds salvation. That synergy is precisely what makes the work a wonder of contemporary European cinema. It also certainly looks like one: Robbie Ryan’s affective camerawork is once again tasked with bringing us closer to the inarticulate wonders that surround a female protagonist, even more so in a project that treats the distance between species not as a gap, but as a bridge. In this way, Bailey, like Mia in Fish Tank [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Andrea Arnold
film profile] or Star in American Honey, is constantly preparing to face the future alone. But unlike them, perhaps she doesn’t have to.

Bird was produced by London-based House Productions in co-production with France’s Ad Vitam and ARTE France Cinéma, with Cornerstone Films Limited handling its world sales.

Photogallery 16/05/2024: Cannes 2024 - Bird

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Andrea Arnold, Franz Rogowski, Jason Buda, Barry Keoghan, Nykiya Adams
© 2024 Fabrizio de Gennaro for Cineuropa - fadege.it, @fadege.it