This 1970 outing was next on my list after watching Deep Red. I wanted something earlier in Argento’s filmography but not super-early, and this one seems to be generally acknowledged as his first really good film.
Like Deep Red, Bird is a straight-up mystery/thriller. There is nothing supernatural going on here and not even any suggestion of misdirection in that regard. That’s fine. I was saying to a friend the other day that these films feel like a bit like proto-slashers to me. While there are none of the killing-teenagers-as-punishment-for-sex or Final Girl tropes, these movies do feature some mysterious, unseen maniac killing off characters and stylistic tics like gore and killer-POV shots.
I liked this movie but I don’t think it is as good as Deep Red. I do get that it was highly influential and established a lot of the familiar features of the giallo genre, and I could also see some indications of what was to come with Argento’s subsequent films. This one had the close-ups of the killer’s hands in black leather gloves and the recurring motif of characters’ eyes suddenly filling the frame.
There are also isolated shots throughout the film that are quite striking—the wide shots of the art gallery, Sam and Inspector Morosini in the police station, and the nighttime cat-and-mouse sequence in the bus yard are all stand-outs.
However, I was surprised how much of the flim I found to be visually bland and washed-out. Maybe that’s just an expectations thing, though; I might have experienced it differently had I watched this movie before seeing any of Argento’s later works. Put this one up against most of the other stuff—especially genre movies—and it will stand out. That it is not as visually striking as Argento’s later movies is a commentary on how good those movies are rather than a flaw of this one.