Click here to follow Screen Digital on YouTube and stay updated with the latest from the world of cinema.
© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd
Tags:
In an alternate world — a just world — Diego Calva would be an Oscar-nominated actor and his breakout film, Babylon, would (correctly) be regarded as a modern masterpiece. But in the real world, he’s being wasted as the fourth lead in a spinoff to a Netflix film that is best remembered for inspiring dumb TikTokers to risk their lives for some temporary online clout.
Released in 2018, Bird Box became Netflix’s biggest original hit to that point, and proved that Sandra Bullock was quietly one of the world’s last remaining movie stars. Her presence alone transformed what would have been a middling B-movie into a genuinely thrilling, and surprisingly heartfelt experience. Directed by Sussanne Bier, Bird Box was coincidentally released in the same year as John Krasinski’s the first A Quiet Place — both post-apocalyptic thrillers in which the last remnants of humanity were struggling to fend off mysterious aliens that preyed on our senses. In A Quiet Place, making the slightest of sounds would attract murderous monsters, and in Bird Box, the tiniest glimmer of vision would compel a person to kill themselves, usually in very gory fashion.
To its credit, Bird Box Barcelona — not a direct sequel, but more of a follow-up — doesn’t revisit the themes or trademarks of the first movie. Not only is it set in a different language and location, it also uses an entirely different cinematic grammar to communicate its (partially interesting) ideas. Switching between two timelines — the first, ostensibly, is the present day, and the second is some months in the past — Bird Box Barcelona follows a character named Sebastian (Mario Casas) as he navigates a ravaged world, having lost his wife and daughter in the mayhem that followed the ‘invasion’.
While the first film was a slow-burn thriller about finding glimmers of hope in a desolate world, Bird Box Barcelona is a more straightforward scary movie, at least formally. It packs in a handful of thrilling set pieces, and directors David and Álex Pastor craft some interesting horror imagery, but despite all that, the movie can’t help but feel it’s lacking in depth. Thematically, it makes somewhat astute attempts at timeliness, as it addresses humanity’s strange fascination for religious fundamentalism in times of great strife. This was briefly hinted in the first movie, by a character who saw the sudden arrival of demonic entities as a sign of the end times; a reckoning of sorts. Bird Box Barcelona takes this idea and runs with it.
As he scrambles to get his young daughter to safety in the immediate aftermath of the apocalyptic event, Sebastian runs into a priest, who mumbles ominously, “They say faith is believing in what you cannot see…” Without getting into any specifics, Sebastian subsequently develops a bit of a messiah complex — not because of his interaction with the padre, but after his brain is warped by the grief of losing his family. He experiences visions and adopts an appearance that may or may not be curated to resemble Moses. Midway through the movie, he even attempts to lead a group of survivors who he sees as ‘sheep’ — one of whom is played by Calva — to salvation.
But for all its mysticism and mystery, Bird Box Barcelona is far too intent on spelling some things out. Instead of taking the Lovecraftian approach to the situation — like the first film — and allowing audiences to project their own fears onto the invisible villains, the movie attempts to build lore, perhaps in order to comply with the demands of fleshing out a young franchise. It’s like if the the It movies began breaking down Pennywise’s skincare routine; nobody wants to see that. But Bird Box Barcelona seems to think that this is vital, and in doing so, it shortchanges itself, and us.
Bird Box Barcelona
Directors – David Pastor, Álex Pastor
Cast – Mario Casas, Georgina Campbell, Diego Calva
Rating – 2.5/5
Click here to follow Screen Digital on YouTube and stay updated with the latest from the world of cinema.
