The Bird

A beautiful and introspective observation on the experience of grief and rebirth.  Yves Caumon’s direction establishes the audience as a voyeur in the life of Anne (Sandrine Kiberlain), a kitchen hand living alone in an old apartment in Bordeaux.  We dutifully follow Anne’s daily routine of work and sleep, or lack of, feeling the slow but reassuring repetition of a quiet solitary existence.  Then with the appearance of an uninvited visitor to her apartment, Anne is forced to think about the presence of something else. Gradually we are treated to glimpses of Anne’s tentative steps towards reintegration with the outside world, as she begins to awake from her robotic state.

Caumon parcels out information with careful frugality, but the audience is rewarded for its patience with small and beautifully nuanced emotive scenes.