Birds of Passage (Pájaros de verano) (2019)
91%RT Audience Score: 85%
Awards & Nominations: 31 wins & 42 nominations
Birds of Passage traces the familiar arc of the drug crime thriller from a different direction that’s as visually absorbing as it is hard-hitting.
Birds of Passage is a stunning film that captures the impact of crime across generations in a way that will leave you breathless. It’s like watching Martin Scorsese’s Casino, but with a unique twist that makes it stand out from the rest. The cinematography is beautiful, and the characters are so well-developed that you’ll feel like you know them personally. Plus, the film sheds light on the Wayúu tribe and their culture, which is something that’s rarely explored in cinema. Overall, Birds of Passage is a must-see for anyone who loves crime dramas with a twist.
Production Company(ies)
Renaissance Films, British Broadcasting Corporation, Curzon Film Distributors
Distributor
The Orchard
Release Type
Theatrical, Theatrical (Limited)
Filming Location(s)
La Guajira, Colombia
MPAA / Certificate
Not Rated
Year of Release
2019
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Color:Color
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Sound mix:Dolby Atmos Dolby Digital SDDS
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Aspect ratio:2.35 : 12.39:1
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Runtime:2h 5m
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Language(s):Wayuu, Spanish, English
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Country of origin:Colombia, Denmark, Germany, Mexico, Switzerland
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Release date:Release Date (Theaters): Feb 13, 2019 Limited
Release Date (Streaming): May 7, 2019
Genre(s)
Crime/Drama
Keyword(s)
starring Carmina Martinez, Natalia Reyes, José Acosta, Jhon Narváez, Jose Vicente, Greider Meza, directed by Cristina Gallego, Ciro Guerra, written by Maria Camila Arias, Jacques Toulemonde Vidal, Crime, Drama, box office performance, budget, reviewed by Eric Kohn, Manu Yáñez, Andrea Gronvall, David Stratton, Paul Byrnes, Amy Nicholson, Taylor Baker, Richard Propes, Luke Gorham, Matt Cipolla, Yasser Medina, Eileen G’Sell, producer Cristina Gallego, Katrin Pors, MPAA rating, The origins of the Colombian drug trade, indigenous Wayuu family, selling marijuana, American youth, 1970s, greed, passion, honor, fratricidal war, lives, culture, ancestral traditions, Spanish, The Orchard, Dolby Atmos, SDDS, Dolby Digital, Scope (2.35:1), Úrsula, Zaida, Rapayet, Moisés, Peregrino, Leonídas, Carmina Martinez, Úrsula, Natalia Reyes, Zaida, José Acosta, Rapayet, Jhon Narváez, Moisés, Jose Vicente, Peregrino, Greider Meza, Leonídas
Worldwide gross: $2,517,405
Worldwide gross (inflation-adjusted): $2,908,747
Worldwide gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): 2,321
Worldwide tickets sold (est.): 317,203
US/Canada gross: $507,259
US/Canada gross (inflation-adjusted): $586,115
US/Canada gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): 2,290
US/Canada opening weekend: $23,082
US/Canada opening weekend (inflation-adjusted): $26,670
US/Canada opening weekend ranking (inflation-adjusted): 2,411
Budget and Earnings Details
Production budget (est.): NA
Production budget (inflation-adjusted): NA
Production budget ranking: NA
Marketing and distribution budget (inflation-adjusted est.): NA
Box office net earnings to date (inflation-adjusted est.): NA
ROI to date (est.): NA
ROI ranking: NA
Natalia Reyes – Zaida
José Acosta – Rapayet
Jhon Narváez – Moisés
Jose Vicente – Peregrino
Greider Meza – Leonídas
Director(s)
Cristina Gallego, Ciro Guerra
Writer(s)
Maria Camila Arias, Jacques Toulemonde Vidal
Producer(s)
Cristina Gallego, Katrin Pors
Film Festivals
Sundance, Cannes, Telluride, Toronto
Awards & Nominations
31 wins & 42 nominations
Academy Awards
All Critics (168) | Top Critics (47) | Fresh (162) | Rotten (6)
Yet even as Birds of Passage fetishizes its dreary mood, it excels at tracking the gradual impact of crime across generations less invested in playing by ancient rules.
December 20, 2019 | Rating: B+
Eric Kohn
indieWire
TOP CRITIC
Suffice it to say that while watching Birds of Passage this critic couldn’t stop thinking about Martin Scorsese’s Casino, with its lucid and kinetic dissection of the annihilation of a subculture at the hands of global capitalism.
December 19, 2019
Manu Yáñez
Film Comment Magazine
TOP CRITIC
Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego’s follow-up to their 2015 gem Embrace of the Serpent is a stunner.
December 18, 2019
Andrea Gronvall
Chicago Reader
TOP CRITIC
We’ve seen plenty of films about South American drug cartels, but Birds of Passage is unique as it depicts the very source of the problem. Guerra and Gallego show the inexorability with which the violence follows the money.
October 5, 2019 | Rating: 4/5
David Stratton
The Australian
TOP CRITIC
There are ethnographic films and there are crime films. I can’t recall a film before this that does both successfully – but wait, there’s more. Birds of Passage is also an epic tragedy… It’s a breathtaking, moody, elegiac piece of work.
October 2, 2019 | Rating: 4.5/5
Paul Byrnes
Sydney Morning Herald
TOP CRITIC
[I thought] this film just had a really distinctive personality and really beautiful cinematography.
September 18, 2019
Amy Nicholson
FilmWeek (KPCC – NPR Los Angeles)
TOP CRITIC
Episode 40: The Dead Don’t Die / Birds of Passage / All That Jazz
October 4, 2021 | Rating: 78/100
Taylor Baker
Drink in the Movies
What Birds of Passagecaptures so magnificently is the way in which colonialism and capitalism will penetrate every aspect of life for the Wayúu tribe.
September 3, 2020 | Rating: 3.5/4.0
Richard Propes
TheIndependentCritic.com
If the film’s trajectory feels inevitable from its early moments, the particularities of culture and character frequently delight.
July 30, 2020
Luke Gorham
In Review Online
Implicitly aware of its sociopolitical underpinnings, it flows more on emotion than character, making for a song of a film that’s admirable even when it doesn’t succeed.
July 25, 2020 | Rating: 4/5
Matt Cipolla
Film Monthly
The film intrigues me a lot when it presents, as a kind of epic, the spiral of violence unleashed by two peasant families, in what appears to be a very elliptical chronicle of the origins of drug trafficking. [Full review in Spanish]
June 27, 2020 | Rating: 7/10
Yasser Medina
Cinemaficionados
The female-forward characters and the matrilineal Wayúu tribe the movie orbits have gone surprisingly under-explored by film critics.
February 25, 2020
Eileen G’Sell
Hyperallergic…
Plot
In the 70s, as the American youth embraces hippie culture, marijuana bonanza hits Colombia, quickly turning farmers into seasoned businessmen. In the Guajira desert, a Wayuu indigenous family takes a leading role in this new venture, and discovers the perks of wealth and power. But when greed, passion, and honor blend together, a fratricidal war breaks out and will soon put their family, their lives and their ancestral traditions at stake.
Trivia
Goofs / Tidbits
The non-actors in the cast deliver flat performances, keeping us from caring very deeply about most of the characters.
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