Mark Reviews Movies: BIRDS OF PASSAGE

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Review by Mark Dujsik | February 28, 2019

The man just wanted a wife. It seems like a simple and understandable enough desire. Everything goes wrong, though, in ways that probably nobody could have predicted from such humble beginnings.

Co-directors Cristina Gallego (her directorial debut) and Ciro Guerra's Birds of Passage opens with a young woman, a member of the indigenous Wayuu people of northern Colombia, officially entering the world as a woman, after spending time locked away in a shack and learning the customs of her people. A man, part of the same ethnic group but working with alijunas (outsiders), announces his desire to marry her through a "word messenger," as is the tradition. The woman's mother lays out the terms of the customary dowry for her daughter. It's much more than the man possesses or could afford, but he's certain of his desire to marry this woman.

That's the prologue to this decades-spanning tale, which unfolds over the course of five acts—called cantos (songs) here—in the classic mold of modern tragedy. In that same mold, the tragedy of the story occurs, not because of fate or circumstances or some other force beyond the characters' control, but because of single, clearly identifiable flaw in the thinking and ways of the people involved. The fault is not, as the old Bard said, in their stars. It is in themselves.

To be sure, there are outside forces and, perhaps, even supernatural influences at play here, but screenwriters Maria Camila Arias and Jacques Toulemonde Vidal never use those external elements to excuse the actions of these characters. More importantly, the film never suggests that these outside forces and influences are the cause of what unfolds and what these characters do. To imply such a thing would be to take away this narrative, about a distinct cultural group, from the people about whom the story is told.

The characters here aren't portrayed in an elevated or denigrated status. They are simply human—wanting basic things, as well as being industrious in figuring out how to get them, but also allowing that desire to overcome them, leading to inevitably tragic consequences.

Here, then, is a film that offers a view into a usually unrepresented group of the world, filled with and steeped in the specificity of their culture, and also one that places these people and their culture on the foundation of readily recognizable and easily understandable storytelling. It's a tragedy, in which the shared flaw is mounting and unstoppable greed, yes, but it's also a crime saga, in which the members of an extended family gain the world through illegal means, only to lose their souls—and, eventually, everything else—in the process.

At the start, though, the story, which begins in 1968, is entirely about Rapayet (José Acosta) and his intentions to marry Zaida (Natalia Reyes), the daughter of Úrsula (Camiña Martínez), the powerful matriarch of a Wayuu clan. The family requests livestock and necklaces as a dowry, so Rapayet seeks the help of his closest friend and business associate Moisés (Jhon Narváez) to make the money to afford the family's demands.

The two begin innocently, buying and selling coffee. By chance, they overhear that an American man working for the Peace Corps is looking to buy a large quantity of marijuana for his fellow volunteers, spreading the word against Communism in South America.

Rapayet's cousin Aníbal (Juan Bautista Martínez) just happens to grow the plant up in his family estate in the hills. Soon enough, Rapayet and Moisés have thoroughly embraced the capitalism celebrated by the visiting Americans, who partner with the two to transport thousands of pounds of marijuana via plane from Colombia to the United States. The Americans and the concept of predatory capitalism, by the way, are the spark that begins the eventual destruction of these characters (and are indicted as such), but the filmmakers are certain to solidify that the ability to twist and distort ideas to fulfill one's avarice is universal.

If the narrative—which later involves betrayals and murder upon more betrayals and more murder across at least three generations of characters—sounds typical, it is to an extent. Players come and go. Seemingly solid alliances are tested, and war breaks out when, after years of watching how his family operates, Úrsula's youngest son Leonídas (Greider Meza) transforms from an angry, impotent boy into an angry young man with the power to act on his impulses.

The vital thing, though, is how the filmmakers frame this story. Plot-wise, this is a straightforward gangster tale, but the film displays considerable patience, establishing the traditions of the Wayuu people—so that we can bear witness to how these characters go against them and alter them in order to fit their goals—and taking the time to set up a sense of tranquility before the violence begins.

When that violence does come, in a tense standoff between Rapayet's crew and his American buyers, the initial shock of it is immense. As it continues, Gallego and Guerra keep a certain distance from it—not to evade the consequences but to emphasize how commonplace it has become in such a relatively short time (During a raid on an estate in the desert, the camera keeps moving farther away in a series of shots, until the smoke from the assault becomes one with the storm clouds above).

The camera stays on the perpetrators of that violence—the flashes of pistol shots like some spiritual camera, illuminating their tortured faces and freezing them in that moment. The characters here are literally haunted by their actions, through dreams of the dead and the constant presence of a ghost in the form of a bird. The devastation of the soul here is not merely a metaphor. It becomes incarnate.

Because of its attention to detail and willingness to take its time, the film acts as a unique crime story, while also serving as a perceptive study of Wayuu culture, as a haunting examination of how traditions can be perverted to suit unintended goals, and as a somber reflection of how easily greed flourishes and spreads. Birds of Passage is specific to its time, its place, and the people who populate its story, but like in a great tragedy, we can see the whole of humanity in how the foibles of these characters overwhelm their better selves.

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