Birds of Passage

Natalia Reyes

Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego's Birds of Passage, from 2018, is an intriguing chronicle of the rise and fall of one family caught up in the Colombian drug wars. The film starts in 1968 with a ritual marking the emergence into womanhood of teenage Zaida (Natalia Reyes). Zaida belongs to the Wayuu people, an Amerindian ethnic group based in northern Colombia. Birds of Passage is partly an ethnographic portrait of the Wayuu with each of the five parts of the film structured around a tribal ritual. However, the film also portrays the estrangement of the Wayuu from their traditional ways as they grow wealthy from marijuana cultivation and embrace Western culture.

Jose Acosta plays Rapayet, an impoverished suitor of Zaida who enters the drug trade in order to pay off Zaida's dowry and wed her. He is able to do so, but, eventually, at a dear cost. The film illustrates the next twelve years in the life of Zaida and Rapayet's family and their eventual downfall. Like Guerra's previous film, Embrace of the Serpent, is handsomely shot and also somewhat ponderous. The directors tend to line up their cast in straight lines as if they are a chorus, a technique that is efficient, but unimaginatively static. Still, Birds of Passage resounds as a tragedy of almost Shakespearean dimensions. Mr. Acosta is a blank slate as an actor, but Ms. Reyes, Carmina Martinez as her mother and Greider Meza as her hot headed cousin all create three dimensional characters that add to the desolate feeling of eventual loss. 

Mr. Guerra's career has been waylaid by accusations of sexual misconduct. This led not only to a professional split from Ms. Gallego, but also led to the dissolution of their marriage. Because of this, some may be disinclined to watch Birds of Passage, but I would urge all to separate the man from his work and give this ultimately affecting film a gander.