Birdy

One of two friends back from Vietnam will not speak or eat in a military hospital, crouching and waiting like a bird. The other, his own face bandaged, is called in to get him to talk. The film cuts between the present and the past: the two boys growing up in Philadelphia and one of them obsessed with birds. Rather than explaining the trauma, the narrative shows that this boy did not belong to this world before the war either. Alan Parker directed. Matthew Modine and Nicolas Cage lead; the score is by Peter Gabriel. It won the grand jury prize at Cannes. Before watching: it is adapted from a novel set during the Second World War. Practices inside the psychiatric institution are also shown harshly.