Birds of Passage

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Tom M Apr 3 This begins like you might be watching a slow artistic climb into a foreign culture. Worthy but boring. Then it becomes a slow burn thriller with twists an d turns violence and intrigue. In the end is a sad message. This is the drugs war told from the other side. Give it time and you'll be gripped. See more Gortee U 08/25/2023 Crist on the bike, it's an masterpeace i fucking love it, but at the begining it may took and be strange,but at the end and middle of the movie its just, good, like i cannot discribe the words how good it's See more Nawt W 08/29/2022 By trying to not glorify the marihuana trade frenzy, the movie presents an exceptionally grey worldview of the culture it's trying to showcase. In those vast desert locations that start to feel more and more ominous as the movie goes on, It starts to be perceived as a limbo where the family is trapped in and the only thing that changes through the years is decoration. Combined with esoteric spiritualism, it creates a vivid setting. The movie looks gorgeous, to say the least, and has a great tribal soundtrack. The cast does an amazing job of presenting lucid and affecting characters that succumb to the allure and the greed. Some take up too much time, some just lumber along with the narrative like Zaida.  What sort of puts me off is the implications that the backbone of the story eventually leaves. I do want to commend the movie for not pretending like the family was being put between choosing traditions or wealth from drugs. No, Ursula moonlights as a mob matriarch and still gets to have her little rituals and rites with no pushback, and so do the other bosses. It's not even Ursula's branch-specific feature. Apparently, the entire family can start waging a war on short notice.  So in the end, the entire culture gets transformed by whatever the director chose to be the bane of these people: drug trade and unregulated capitalism, but Ursula's specifically gets punished because they've gotten too greedy by building a condo in the middle of the desert? Even if a third of her problems stem from her moron of a son that she literally didn't even try to do anything about? This entire set up makes tragedy feel hollow. See more 04/12/2022 Birds of Passage (2018), co-directed by Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra, is a dramatic film about Colombia's drug trade, spanning a period of two decades from the 1960s to the 1980s, as seen through the eyes of a multi-generational indigenous family who become involved in the business of drug dealing. The film is based on a story by Jacques Toulemande with screenplay by Maria Camila Arias. The film is beautifully shot by cinematographer David Gallego. Gallego and Guerra weave together many visual elements to create a compelling dramatic film where marginalization, lawlessness, and poverty meet business opportunity. The film is set against a wider context of Colombia's decades long conflict beginning in the 1960s between the Colombian government and several militant groups including the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the National Liberation Army (ELN), and the drug cartels. The film is in Wayuunaki, an indigenous language spoken by the indigenous group the Wayuu, along with Spanish, and a little English. The film is sub-titled. A recurring motif running through the film is the avian birds-of-paradise, a sacred bird for the Wayuu people. This bird species is endangered due to the deforestation of their habitat like the Wayuu themselves who have been under threat and have seen a loss of territory and a traditional way of life. These avian birds-of-paradise lend their name to the beautiful, colourful flowers which resemble the avian birds-of -paradise in flight. The avian birds-of-paradise hold great spiritual significance for the Wayuu people as seen in their courtship dance called the YONNA when the female protagonist's daughter wraps herself from head to toe in a red blanket and chases a male suitor while mimicking exaggerated bird-like movements. The birds-of-paradise appear throughout the film which serves as metaphor to an endangered people victimized by centuries of colonization and exploitation since the time of Columbus to a dangerous way of life that puts them further at risk and in harm's way. Another recurring motif is the culture of the Wayuu people. Wayuu culture, beliefs, and traditions are contextualized in the narrative of the film giving it richness and complexity and a documentary like quality. The film is well-crafted making use of diverse angle shots, editing techniques incorporating long and short takes, night and day, scenic and diverse locations, and dream sequences. The directors use interstitial titles to structure the film over a time span. Close ups and medium angle shots are interspersed with wide angle shots. The directors juxtapose the narrative of the family drug business against the simmering tensions amongst the characters and the community to create dramatic tension that moves the film. It's a compelling and powerful film that shines a light on the drug trade in Colombia as seen through the point of view of an indigenous family trying to survive not only a failed state but to overcome poverty and marginalization. See more 02/12/2022 Introducción al narcotráfico I 🤑 See more 11/13/2021 I knew about this film beforehand that it was about Columbian drug rings and about Wayuu culture (although I didn't really know what Wayuu meant). I assumed it would just be more glorified violence and gratuitous drug use like many of these drug films, I was very pleased to see that it wasn't. Admittedly the plot was a little thin - a poor person with a lot of potential needs money and gets into drug trade, soon becomes hyper rich and along the way many people get hurt, eventually he regrets it all and everyone he loves gets taken away or killed, nothing new there. The characters were OK but the protagonist Rapayet basically disappears after two thirds of the film, the wise woman of the tribe (Ursula?) whom I actually quite respected earlier in the film for her insight and steady reason combined with mysticism became some crazy old bitch woman who can't loosen the apron strings and other characters who actually had some depth and honour become little more than one dimensional violent psychos later. Perhaps all this was intentional showing how greed and capitalism ruins individuals as well as cultures and societies or perhaps the film makers just ran out of ways to develop the characters further or perhaps they were just using the characters for the story and that ruined the flow a little. I was surprised how much the Wayuu culture added to the film, I actually found that very interesting and although no doubt a little over romanticised or overdone at times when I accepted the artistic license I believe there was some real depth and genuineness behind it. Of course a lot of the film was passing on the message of how greed and capitalism have, and continue to, ruin people, land and culture, how it infects societies and spreads, how it is very dangerous, how it has just invaded the land and taken it from the ancestors, nothing new there but I'm not going to complain about that because it is a very important message and one we still don't seem to have really learnt, not really, as things are just carrying on the same, if not worse. I thought some of the cinematography was very nice with some good shots of nature, whether that be vast featureless desert, scrubland or even lush forest. Some of it quite creative too, particularly what stood out was when they assaulted Ursuala's(?) house near the end - this house in very fashionable (and no doubt expensive) architecture and not at all traditional standing in stark contrast to the sunburnt desert around it and they all just arrive, blast the hell out of it and off they go, almost surreal. Also loved the end scene with the girl wandering off with the goats with beautiful sky and some desert and little patch of water, very poetic - sad and beautiful. I liked the interjection with the singing and poetry, putting it all into context, although these horrible horrible things do happen, including in real life, when it finally comes to it just a drop in the ocean of existence (doesn't make it acceptable of course). Then the opening scene with the dance, mesmerising and beautiful. So although a lot of this had been done before and things seemed to lose power towards the end the message is very important, the cultural elements were interesting and added much depth and it was nicely done. The Godfather meets Dances with Wolves? See more Read all reviews

Birds of Passage

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