Μύ If you've visited San Francisco you've probably made the steep climb up North Beach's Telegraph Hill to enjoy the view from the famous Coit Tower. It's a spot that inspires as many travel guide laurels for its wildlife as for its view of the bay. A flock of brilliant green parrots has made it home. Watching over them is local eccentric Mark Bittner, and documentary The Wild Parrots Of Telegraph Hill is a charming portrait of this New Age Noah.
The unemployed, practically homeless Bittner is as much filmmaker Judy Irving's subject as the 45 feathered friends he dotes on full-time. His whimsical lifestyle is the kind of foggily non-capitalist existence that can only work on America's west coast. He seems to live on fresh air and good vibes, and he looks pretty well on it - if a little bit of a hippie. "I wasn't gonna cut my hair till I got a girlfriend," he says.(Mark's hair could tuck neatly into his belt.) He seems pretty happy though, and with his adopted family of parrots he has created his own world. Often he adds a tellingly romantic commentary to Irving's gorgeous and vivid images of the birds at play.
"TRANSCENDS ITS OSTENSIVE SUBJECT"
Some of the production is San Fran-cheesy and this is certainly not cool or edgy filmmaking. But in the spirit of all good documentaries, Wild Parrots transcends its ostensive subject. It's about a man who doesn't fit in with regular society and a group of birds who have found a way to survive in a habitat in which they don't really belong. As someone wise once said, it ain't easy being green.
