The Birdman

Rainbow Music is a record shop stacked floor to ceiling with CDs, VHS tapes, and old cassettes, the kind of clutter that looks like chaos to anyone walking in off the street. Its owner, known only as the Birdman, is the exception: he can locate any title in the pile without hesitation, moving through towers of media that would defeat an inventory system. The short profile spends its time simply watching him work and talk, letting his manner and his relationship to the shop explain who he is rather than relying on narration to tell you. It is a small character study built around one eccentric figure and the overstuffed space he has made his own, more interested in observation than explanation. The film does not try to turn Rainbow Music into a bigger statement about music retail or hoarding; it stays close to the Birdman himself and the strange order he has made out of apparent disorder.