Birds of Passage
[DVD]

Description

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION During the marijuana bonanza, a violent decade that saw the origins of drug trafficking in Colombia, Rapayet and his indigenous family get involved in a war to control the business that ends up destroying their lives and their culture. REVIEW Ciro Guerra's film Embrace of the Serpent from 2015 was an audacious journey into Colombia s dark interior, figurative and literal, a jungle full of Kurtzian fear. Now he has entered into a fascinating auteur collaboration with his longtime producer Cristina Gallego to create this really startling and intriguing movie, which was Colombia s shortlisted entry for best foreign film in this year s Academy Awards. It grafts quasi-ethnographic docudrama on to druglord turf war epic, mixing professional and nonprofessional actors. This is filmmaking that really does push at the limits of storytelling and generic templates, and it's brimming with images and ideas. Taking place over a timespan of about 20 years, from the 1960s to the 80s, Birds of Passage is a poetic re-imagining of the rise of Colombia's marijuana trade in a series of five poetically conceived songs, entitled Wild Grass, The Graves, Prosperity, The War and Limbo. It finds its drama not in the lives of the wealthy US dealers and consumers but in those of the Colombian producers and suppliers, presenting their world in a dream-choreography. - Peter Bradshaw (4 Stars) --https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/may/15/birds-of-passage-review-ciro-guerra-colombia-marijuana-trade Structured via five distinct sections, Guerra and Gallego's world is one of striking, vivid contrasts. Its imagery includes a stark modernist home in the arid, empty plains of the desert; machine-guns and diamonds vying for space amid tribal talismans and ritual costume. While the pressures of external forces come down on Rapayet and his family, their greatest loss is the lifestyle of their forefathers - one which demanded a separation from those very forces. Riches and ambition come at a steep price in Birds Of Passage, and the filmmakers use a singular story to express the sorrow of an indigenous culture torn asunder by the worst kinds of modernity. - Christina Newland (4 Stars) --https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/birds-passage-review/

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