Movie Review

Directed by Judy Irving, starring: Mark Bittner, Connor, Olivia, Picasso et al, Pelican Media, 83 minutes, 2005.

Like a lot of older guys, while Connor has been around for a while, he doesn't feel entirely comfortable with many of the new bunch. He's standoffish because he knows he's a little different and indeed, he is treated differently. Still, he's often protective of the younger guys, defending them against attack from others and helping them get their feet if they are unwell or weak. He's a widower but he'd like to meet someone and establish a permanent relationship. But he looks different and the females don't want to take a chance. His experience might be compared to that of many single people in parish life except that Connor is a parrot, a Blue Headed Conure in a flock of Cherry Headed Conures. This is a flock of wild birds, not native to the US (they come from Ecuador), that has grown from parrots that have hitch hiked by boat or from pets that have escaped or been abandoned by owners. Many urban legends exist to explain their presence.

It is a charming tale of how Mark Bittner made his way down from Seattle to try to become a rock and roll musician in San Francisco in the '60's, "between The Beats and The Hippies". He didn't but along the way he developed a curiosity about the parrots that lived around Telegraph Hill where he lived in a tiny cottage just underneath Coit Tower. Bittner began to feed them as a kind of spiritual exercise in caring for creation, named the few that hung around, then began taking sick ones into his house and finally making it a life's work to study and care for this flock. He's a very astute observer and has a clear sense of the dangers of anthropomorphic projections he might make about them. He worked odd jobs to get enough money to buy feed. People in the North Beach Area developed an affection for this off beat character and gave him food and helped with the rent. His life becomes a living illustration of Jesus' admonition to consider the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. Bittner himself neither toils nor spins. Along the way, we too come to care for these gaudy characters who have names, loves, mates, dangers, illnesses, deaths and quirky personalities. It's like a parish, eh?

As it turns out, Connor does meet someone. Olivia is a Mitered Conure who herself does not look like the other parrots in the flock. In contrast to Connor's quiet, isolated behaviour she is a feisty presence who will not yield to her assigned role as "outsider". Together, they produce that most rare of creatures, a double hybrid, a new breed. When Connor disappears, likely the work of a dreaded hawk, we mourn with Olivia.

However, as one of the directors of March of the Penguins said, "It's a movie about birds". One must be careful not to project notions of Intelligent Design, human motivation or even moral nostrums about animal behaviour (suspending for the moment thoughts of our own animal behaviour!). That said this is a story of spiritual journey by Bittner to find and be found by a vocation, a call to a life work that has no career line or pay grade attached. He is, in the true sense of the word, meek; one who knows his place.