Pedro Rodrigue's To Die Like A Man

The films of the Portuguese director João Pedro Rodrigues are usually mounted in such a way to pique our curiosity, even if the accessibility of the challenging narratives are sometimes limited. I found “To Die Like a Man” a worthy experience, regardless of its flaws, and was even more impressed with the mournful “The Last Time I Saw Macao”.
His new drama, “The Ornithologist”, raises the level of abstraction when compared to the previous tales, but still comprehends homosexual connotations, crime, and mystery. What is different here is a pronounced surrealism where the contemplation of nature mixes with religious symbolism and folklore elements to form a puzzling peregrination toward the Christian conversion.
The crisp images are deliberately
Along the way, we learn that Fernando’s mental health depends on some pills whose bottle got out of sight. Is this a bad dream or a real demonic nightmare? The impertinent presence of an owl annunciates further oddities.
Amidst heavy symbolism, punctilious allegory, and religious metaphors, the mystic tale loses a bit of direction somewhere in the middle, before Fernando rebirths as Anthony (director’s cameo) and return evangelized to the civilization, hand-in-hand with Jesus’ twin brother, Thomas.
With an approach that borrows a few stylistic constituents from Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, this is all about belief and self-discovery.
This widely figurative film can be as much tortuous as the paths of faith itself and yet sin and repent are not taken seriously here. Some viewers will find “The Ornithologist” pretentious and philosophically boring while some others will see it as an avant-garde cult film of haunting expression. It will all depend on your openness and state of