Birds of Passage (2018)

[MifuneFan]

I just finished watching the Colombian film Birds of Passage, and figured it deserved some more recognition by way of an actual Blu-ray thread.

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Birds...lu-ray/233462/

From the Oscar -nominated team behind the genre-defying Embrace of the Serpent, comes an equally audacious saga centered on the Wayúu indigenous people during a crucial period in recent Colombian history. Torn between his desire to become a powerful man and his duty to uphold his culture's values, Rapayet (José Acosta) enters the drug trafficking business in the 1970s and finds quick success despite his tribe's matriarch Ursula's (Carmiña Martínez) disapproval. Ignoring ancient omens, Rapayet and his family get caught up in a conflict where honor is the highest currency and debts are paid with blood. A sprawling epic about the erosion of tradition in pursuit of material wealth, Birds of Passage is a visually striking exploration of loyalty, greed, and the voracious nature of change. 2019 Oscar Shortlist- Best Foreign Language Film.

This was a really great watch. It deals with the emerging drug industry in Colombia during the 1970's, and the effects it had on one Native American tribe. While there are shades of other drug empire films here, Birds of Passage presents it in a wholly unique way. The story is broken into 5 chapters, spanning some 20 or so years, and has a sort of Indian folklore narrative to introduce and close out the film.

While you will inevitably come away from the film thinking about how detrimental the drug industry has been to the tribe, its use in the movie is almost symbolic of outsider influence in general chipping away at the culture of these indigenous peoples. There's a great deal of superstition, dream interpretations, and some surreal imagery that more times than not touches on the fears of their lives being uprooted by the changing world around them.

The film can be hard to watch at times. Things get very tense, and there's numerous scenes where you feel like someone could be killed in cold blood at any moment (and often they are). The film is violent, but doesn't have violence just for the sake of it like so many films out there. There's a certain code to the kills, even as it becomes cyclical, and vengeance begetting revenge time and time again.

This film seemed to go very much under the radar, but now having seen it, I'd consider it one of the best foreign films of 2018.

BIRDS OF PASSAGE (2018) | Official US Trailer HD - YouTube

There was a thread in the wishlist section btw, so mods can move that thread here and just add this post to it if they want.