About Birdboy: The Forgotten Children
Birdboy: The Forgotten Children is a 2015 film directed and written by Alberto Vazquez and Pedro Rivero. It is based on the comic series Psiconautas by Alberto Vazquez. The film is one hour and sixteen minutes long. Birdboy: The Forgotten Children is a horror coming-of-age set in a post-apocalypse world of anthropomorphic animals.
Birdboy: The Forgotten Children (Review)
A good horror/suspense will usually give us a question to ponder that goes beyond the medium we are consuming and oftentimes, leaves it unanswered. When we watch horror/suspense, we don’t go in ONLY hoping for a terrifying experience that keeps us scared but we often want to explore the dark places of our mind that exist without us always comprehending the “why”. In Birdboy: The Forgotten Children, we are given an animated story that discusses hardships presented before our existence, during our growth, and coming to terms with some things that are not meant to be (at least in the way we had imagined).
For this experience, if you view it on the Shudder 7-day free trial, you will be viewing the movie in its original presentation with Spanish as the language, so unless you are fluent subtitles are a must. This movie is based on the graphic novel: Psiconautas and follows the lore and reality of a character simply known as Birdboy through an exploration of life from a character named “Dinky”. The art style I draw a comparison to is from a video game called Hollow Knight as it is very dark but seldom vibrant and with demons having imposing and exaggerated features.
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The questions that this movie brought to my attention were anything but childlike, given the film follows the characters being in school. Some of those are “What is the future if we bury today in violence and waste?”, “If we become too attached to a substance to overcome our pain, how do we escape?”, and “Are the wings of freedom truly shackled by our being, even if choice makes those shackles slightly more comfortable?”. The setting for this movie is an island that continues life as usual even after a catastrophic event bludgeons its inhabitants. The violence of that event leaves life splintered into a few groups that are seemingly doing what appears to be “normal life” activities, trying to survive given limited options available, and those looking to escape from what they know in the hopes that what they don’t know, is an oasis or nirvana.
A very heavily revolved theme is the use of substances to satisfy the demons that come about in life, whether they are debilitating mental illnesses, overwhelming urges to sacrifice everyone else but yourself, or the urge to destroy the world around you because it destroyed the world you knew, some find ways to deal with it and get away from the crash it brings, some succumb to the feeling it provides as they are unable to accept the alternative, and further, some almost escape but have the monsters they created come dragging them down.
The final question sees us looking at life as a whole, wondering if our soul had the option to be free of its mortal coil, would it commit to that? Even if we make all the right decisions and don’t end up in our perceived trajectory, did we fail, and does that make the choice somewhat a false advertisement? I believe the movie does a great job presenting the last question within several layers and giving us something to reflect on.
This movie’s time needs are less than 1 and a half hours and if you are looking for an animated feature that reflects on real-life issues, this is a great entry to add to your list. If you are looking for something that appears to be simple but causes you to think a little more profoundly, I would suggest this to you without hesitation.
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