Birds of Passage

... but birds can sing this story so it can remain forever.

My favourite parts of the film had to do with the cantors singing about their own view on the happenings while the inspiring photography drives us into another world. In fact many different worlds, considering we're led from the desert to the foggy mountains to the beach.

A sui generis gangster movie where indigenous traditions, folklore, religion and tribal ways of life take us through this journey of a family being torn by its own ambition of being thriving and united. But also - and probably more important for the author indulging in the showcase of such folklore - a story about the modern world destroying the old one.

I had reviewed "El Abrazo de la Serpiente" by Guerra (with a 4 out of 10.. getting myself a lot of bad votes), and my curiosity towards this movie started with the trailer as it was released: EAdlS might have been a bad movie, but the basic material wasn't bad at all - this new endeavour should be better, embracing the easier-to-digest ganster genre. And here we are: despite a certain slow pace and the obvious constant lingering on the local culture which lots of people might not be fond of, this is obviously a huge improvement.

Regarding the weak points I find the direction very static: most of what happens feels like happening on a stage where actors are all well ordered in rows or ensembles positioned perfectly for the viewer, whether they are talking, negotiating or killing each other. Definetely not realistic and contrary to any action-movie standard.

Also the conclusion, though furtunately avoiding the stupid gangster movie traditional tropes, feels totally underwhelming: the writers could have found something in line with the rest of the movie without leaving the viewer disappointed with such a forgettable ending.

I don't know. Maybe in 50 years we'll be considerig Mr Guerra like Antonioni, and people like me, just idiots unable to get his art. I don't think so but we'll see.

Anyways a great movie. Ty to all involved.

"Birds of Passage" (2018 release from Colombia; 125 min.) is a drug drama about a Wayuu (northern Colombia) family. As the movie opens, Zaida has completed her year of confinement "with grace and dignity" according to her mom, and now the village is celebrating Zaida becoming a woman. Rapayet, a young man in the village, has his eyes on her, and his uncle asks Zaida's family. The family, however, is demanding a dowry of 30 goats and 20 cows, among other things. Rapayet needs to come up with money, lots of money, and by coincidence (when a Peace Corps guy is looking for weed) gets involved in the drug trade... At this point we're less than 15 min. into the movie but to tell you more of the plot will spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: this is the latest movie from Ciro Guera (who previously brought us the equally excellent "Embrace of the Serpent") and Cristina Gallego. "Birds of Passage" follows one particular family's involvement in the drug trade from 1968 to 1980, and the movie is brought in 5 chapters (called "Songs" in the movie: Song I Wild Grass 1968' Song II The Graves 1971, etc. When you heard the words "drug trade" and "Colombia", we typically associate them with movies like "Escobar: Paradise Lost". "Birds of Passage" is a completely different type drug drama, mostly because this deal with an isolated clan, where family and tradition means everything (literally), and due to the small and remoteness of this clan, everything becomes personal very quickly. The cast, unknowns but for Natalia Reyes (who plays Zaida), is generally outstanding. Last but not least, be sure to check out the scenery, which is almost a character in and of itself.

"Bird of Passage" premiered at last year's Cannes film festival to great acclaim, and it finally appeared this weekend at my local art-house movie theater, I couldn't wait to see it. The Sunday matinee screening where I saw this at was attended poorly (6 people including myself). If you are interested in seeing a Colombia drug drama from a very different perspective that what you probably envision, I'd readily suggest you check this out, be it in the theater (if you still can), on VOD, or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray, and draw your own conclusion.

Guerra & Gallego's Wayuu crime epic is dense and beautiful, but a necessary part of its long maudlin descent is that it becomes a serious drag especially towards the end. It's not as transformatively psychedelic as Guerra's Embrace which I adore but it has some seriously brilliant sequences and the sprawling (mainly Wayuu) ensemble cast gives it a beautiful foundational weight. I felt like I learned a lot about this period and place as well as the dark ripples which a sudden influx of money can have on people's choices, on power and greed. It's harrowing because although it is set somewhere very specific, it feels like it could have happened anywhere.

Birds of Passage (Pájaros de verano in Spanish) is a striking and fascinating look into an 'alien' world, a term I use here because this film is a deep dive into another time and far different culture. It could be another planet almost. The film is about events in the 60's and 70's especially regarding the Wayuu of northern Colombia, an Indigenous culture quite divorced from Columbia proper with a distinct language and customs quite different from the rest of Columbia. The English translation presented is always that they are 'Indians' but quite unique if you compare only to the Indians of America. If you look at a map of Columbia, the colorful Wayuu inhabit the peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic in the far north. It's a desert area in part but has green agricultural area in the hills, where marijuana was cultivated very successfully. This film is brilliant and riveting but has the drawback in our own culture of having subtitles, but deserves an audience beyond the multiplex. This great work of movie art retells the story of the Wayuu during the late 60's, early-70's, when Peace Corps volunteers were in the area and the gringos were looking for pot. I understand the fascination of tribal cultures from my own Peace Corps service in Iran, also in the late-60's, and the attraction to cannabis from nearby Afghanistan. As is striking in indigenous cultures, the family is everything to the protagonists of the film with trust in the dream world (literally), family tribal elders and the ways of their ancestors. This area had deep poverty before the exporting of the region's very potent marijuana to the states was embraced. The demand was fed by young Americans willing to pay top dollar for it. I can speak to this also as in 1971 Colombian pot was around in New York City that we called the "two puff stuff". I didn't know anything about origins of this marijuana. I did know a pilot, who had served in the Vietnam and flew planeloads of pot out of Columbia into the States so I had some awareness of the demand. There are better descriptions than I will make of plot details of this film here on IMDB. Not noted directly in the film: by the mid-1980's the violent Medellin cartel took over the Marijuana business from the Wayuu and their region descended again into poverty. The Wayuu people stepped away from further drug-related violence, as had been unleased previously within their clan groups who had run their region's elicit trade. I emphasize in my review the universal theme presented in the film of the undoing of greed and betrayal on traditional and humane values. This epic film ends with a 'war' between warring families or clans. This film is from Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra, who made the unusual "Embrace of the Serpents", a striking and hallucinatory Oscar nominated film, very highly rated on IMDB, but not by me. I didn't appreciate that film as much Birds of Passage. However, having seen this later film from this incredible team, I'll go back and see 'Serpents' again to give it another view.

Birds of Paradise takes a familiar subject, the Colombian drug scene in the '60's and '70's, and makes it into a watchable Godfather saga. Family is the center of the action leading to, you guessed it, warring drug kingdoms. The cinematography is lush, the actors authentic, and the themes eternal.

The stuff that makes the world happy, weed, comes down from the mountains to the small airplanes, which fly north to the US, a pleased customer bringing prosperity to otherwise impoverished Colombians. Marriage promises families forever linked until capitalism, not communism, rends even the strongest familial ties.

The five "cantos" embrace happiness and misery in equal measure: wild grass, the graves, prosperity, the war, and limbo. The coming out party of gorgeous Zaida (Natalia Reyes) presages a bright future for her Wayuu tribe with a blazing-red silk dress and stunning face paint. However, the imposing mother Ursula (Carmina Martinez) demands an expensive dowry that suitor Rapayet (Jose Acosta) might have difficulty offering. This matriarch gives the lie to any theory that Latino culture is purely patriarchal.

Ambition leads to drug running, family feuding, and temporary wealth. The riches are embodied in the colorful fabrics that are flamboyant and garish at the same time. The dark downfalls could be written about anywhere.

Birds of Passage is an engaging and beautiful gloss on the effects of tribalism and the corruptions of wealth and power, exacerbated by the obsession with the belief in family to die for at all costs. It is a glowing and menacing reprise of the Colombian Corleone days set amongst the indigenous Wayuu, for whom only a few moments are in paradise.