Brewster McCloud

Saw Brewster McCloud, a film by Robert Altman. This film was a very self-consciously and purposefully strange film. The film opens with the MGM lion roaring in silence while a narrator mumbles "I forgot the opening line..." We then see a weirdo in a fright-wig lecture us about birds. The story (once it gets going) is about a series of murders that have hit the town. Each time someone is murdered, they're found covered in bird shit. The title character, Brewster, is trying to build a flying machine and is aided by a mysterious woman who has giant scars on her shoulder-blades exactly like an angel whose wings had been cut off. There's also a girl who masturbates while Brewster does chin-ups and a cop from the east coast who is dispatched.

This is a comedy, essentially. It's got the spacey, slightly dry Altman feel to it however. There are no setup/punchline gags as such, but it's absurd and silly. There's also themes throughout (birds particularly) which might cause some to mistake the comedy for some deep message. I think these themes are meant to be more evocative and teasing, not so much a repeated lesson as a running gag. It's a mostly silly film.

Birds haunt this film and their capacity for flight is envied, but they're not depicted as angelic creatures, pure and noble, but as angry, almost contemptuous, shitting animals, flying above us. It's not so much that the birds are enviable as that humans are so repulsive. It's an interesting twist on the trope of the idealistic dreamer. Brewster seems pure and untouchable but we sympathize with his quest for flight because of how stupid and ugly the humans are.

It's a fun movie overall however. Ugliness and stupidity are good sources for humor and although this film won't make anyone (I think) guffaw with laughter, it made me smile. And that's worth something.