Birders: The Central Park Effect

This is a pretty bad documentary. The highlight is when one of the birdwatchers admits how stupid it is.

I saw this film at SXSW on a lark and highly recommend catching it on the big screen if at all possible. A film about birds in Central Park, and the people who watch them. It's transfixing in a deeply peaceful way. Standing out both for the incredible video footage of what must have been 100+ species of birds and the set of human stories/testimonials that accompany it. Especially those from a set of old school New Yorkers, who just happen to be birders. The film's title refers to the incredible concentration of migratory birds that stop off in Central Park. A distinctive path of green welcoming to birds as the move along the east coast from north to south. Even though the park itself is not truly natural (being an engineered creation) it makes for a fine habitat that these birds remember to return to each year. There's really not that much more to say other than to urge folks to look for it when it hits HBO in the future. Their documentary arm wisely snapped this guy up

In light of later events, like the dog-walking woman and the Black birder on 25 May 2020, this is an important for documenting the character and intelligence of Christian Cooper, the Black birder. It's also one of the most sympathetic portrayals of the joys and value of watching birds that I have ever seen. The video recordings of individual species of birds going about their lives is very good. Photo and sound editing are top-notch. My one salient criticism of the film is that the different species should be more consistently identified. It was a pleasant way to spend an hour of pandemic isolation.