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| Images courtesy of Arrow Video |
Spanish Timecrimes composer and Agnosia director
Eugenio Mira made his filmmaking debut as a writer-director in 2004 with the
Corey Feldman starring offbeat bizarro maximalist freakout The Birthday. An English language Spanish produced film
which played at the Sitges Film Festival followed by a theatrical release in
Spain but no United States domestic distribution plan to speak of for almost
twenty years. Circa 2023, Jordan Peele,
an avowed fan of the film, programmed it into Film at the Lincoln Center
followed by an Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas 4K restoration for one-night-only in
2024.
An offbeat uncategorizable mixture
of socially awkward quirky paranoia, murder mystery and eventually increasingly
Alex Cox-like elements of fantasy, science-fiction and just for fun some foggy
nebulous Lynchian surrealism, The Birthday was never going to be an easy
sell for the average moviegoer. But in the
era of boutique labels like Vinegar Syndrome or Arrow Video which is set to
reissue The Birthday on a limited 4K disc, films like it that never got
their fair handshake with the moviegoing public now have a chance to find an
audience.
In for many a career-best performance from Corey Feldman
(that honor still lies with Stand By Me for myself but I digress), the
actor plays Norman Forrester, a lisping awkward dork in a suit attending his
wealthy girlfriend Alison’s (Erica Prior) fancy birthday party commandeered by
her patriarch father Ron (Pieces and Edge of the Axe actor Jack
Taylor) with the intention of seizing on the moment to propose marriage to
her. However, as the night goes on with
steadily bizarre encounters with other guests which may or may not include
cocaine boozing parties, Norman trying to retrieve a birthday present for
Alison ventures into the basement dwelling of the mansion revealing an
otherworldly and perhaps intergalactic conspiracy where the fate of the world
may hang on the balance. All the while,
Norman encounters a pitch perfect romcom staff of servants ala The Stepford
Wives that eventually turn violent, building up towards noisy furious
pandemonium you never saw coming from the film’s first hour.
A movie that begins like a screwball comedy that gradually
slowly turns into a madcap maximalist freakout of sensory overload and excess
ala Darren Aronofsky’s mother! with the fragmented narrative and tonal
shifts of a David Lynch film where you’re not sure whether to laugh or scream, The
Birthday was never going to be for all tastes. From Corey Feldman’s genuinely peculiar and
sometimes annoying performance with his strange accent and kind of bumbling anxiousness,
it takes a bit of getting used to him in the role and a recent viewing of the
documentary Corey Feldman vs. The World didn’t help.
Still, it represents an interesting, singular
performance from Feldman who for once isn’t just playing himself and actively
is trying to disappear into a character.
Supporting players are also good, notably Jack Taylor who is a legendary
character acting presence on the single room set and Erica Prior is tasked with
holding her own against a freakish Corey Feldman. Visually speaking, the film shot in scope
2.35:1 widescreen by Nowhere cinematographer Unax Mendia looks lovely
and achieves the effect of a pressure-cooking chamber piece over time while the
score by director Mira himself provides the peculiar Jonny Greenwood sounding
score.
Previously without distribution in the United States for twenty
years until now thanks to Arrow Video’s 4K UHD limited edition set, The
Birthday features a new audio commentary co-opted by Feldman and Mira, a
new video interview with Mira, archival behind-the-scenes featurettes and a new
2024 q&a with Mira and Feldman regarding the film’s legacy and
reevaluation. For someone coming into
this with all the baggage Feldman has been wearing on his sleeves for the past ten
years, at first it was a hard sell but eventually slowly it began to take the
shape of a Twilight Zone episode which speaks volumes to Jordan Peele’s
admiration for it. Feldman’s a troubled
actor not in his best place creatively or personally, but for what its worth The
Birthday I can absolutely point to as one of his career highlights, a rare
chance to see him in a different light embracing a surreal and interesting
shapeshifting narrative in a film that doesn’t easily fit into any clean-cut
niche.
--Andrew Kotwicki
