A playful, queer riff on the last chapter in the life of St Anthony of Padua, the patron saint for the recovery of lost items, The Ornithologist follows a beautiful, pouty bird-watcher named Fernando (Paul Hamy) as he observes the wildlife populating the misty woods and winding rivers of north-east Portugal. Things quickly take a turn for the bizarre when his kayak snaps and his waterlogged body is rescued by two Chinese girls (self-styled “good Christian girls”), who wrap him in foil, revive him with some “ancient tea” and, er, tie him up. Director João Pedro Rodrigues seems more interested in how to get from one bit of story to another than overall narrative clarity, but the steel-stomached will find there’s fun to be had with the film’s investment in the spectacle of bodies (variously gory or sexy), and Fernando’s increasingly surreal misadventures, which dance violently between the sacred and the profane. Rui Poças’s cinematography makes inventive use of hard and unusual angles, capturing the phantasmic majesty of the towering rock faces that act as a backdrop to Fernando’s spiritual journey.
