As fabulously colorful as these parrots, or conures, are – vibrant green bodies, most with cherry-red crowns – they must be considered co-stars.
A human named Mark Bittner is rightly, humbly the star of this film, which is as much about nurture as it is nature: animal nurture, human nature and vice versa.
It’s clear from the way director Irving’s camera noses around Bittner’s nest of a San Francisco home that this man with the long ponytail, graying beard and soft-spoken manner is the wildest thing in her film.
Bittman came to his birdman role by accident. A reader of poet Gary Snyder’s Zen-influenced works, he migrated from Seattle to San Francisco, with a hitchhiking stint in Europe, hoping to become a musician. That dream never went much beyond street corners. For 14 years, Bittner lived on the streets. Then he became a groundskeeper on property where some parrots nested.
Irving occasionally makes an appearance on screen. She also asks necessary, nudging questions from off camera.
“I’m sorry, what’s the difference between you and the pigeon lady,” she inquires. And she admits being perplexed by Bittner’s fuzzy means of support. After all, his only job seems to be tending the birds.
He’s become their Boswell, chronicling their habits, giving language to their personalities and society. Is he right about Picasso and Sophie’s affair, or Connor’s crankiness? Or is he just providing a touching example of the human talent for anthropomorphizing?
How this and other flocks of wild parrots came to be is open to speculation. At one point, Irving seeks the help of some amusing characters to share a few “urban legends.” Each tale begins with what sounds like the set-up for a joke (albeit a cosmic one). There was this boat. Or maybe it was an overturned truck. Or perhaps it was a cargo plane with a shipment of South American parrots.
At the outset of the film, a visitor joins a few other pilgrims on the walkway to Bittner’s home. He begins asking Bittner pointed if polite questions about the parrots. Their exchange has a “who’s on first?” flavor, with the bespectacled gentleman trying to get the bespectacled Bittner to admit that since he acts as something of a caretaker, the parrots can hardly be considered “wild.” Bittner, seeds in his cupped hand as he reaches into the branches, never concedes the point.
What you think about this philosophical tango isn’t likely to wreck how you feel about the film as it unfurls its lovely wings.
Near the movie’s end, Bittner telegraphs an impending change. Will the emotional migration this flock has taken him on come to an end?
If so, it won’t be without Bittner sharing a openhearted, deeply insightful confession about human folly and awakening.
***
“The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill”
G |1 hour, 33 minutes|NATURE- NURTURE DOCUMENTARY|
Directed by Judy Irving; principal photography by Irving; featuring Mark Bittner, Mingus, Connor, Tupelo, Olive, Sophie, Pushkin, Picasso |Opens today at the Esquire.
