A group of indigenous people face off against the modern day owners of their ancestral homeland in this drama from Italian filmmaker Marco Bechis. The Guarani Indians are the native peoples of central Brazil, and though a handful of them still cling to the ways passed down by their ancestors, most have been forced to live on a reservation far from their native habitat and wear traditional face paint and loincloths for the sake of tourists and bird watchers in order to earn a living. Depression
and suicide is common among the Guarani, and Osvaldo (Abrisio da Silva Pedro) and Ireneu (Ademilson Concianza Verga) decide its time for them to stand up for their people after finding the bodies of two young Guarani women who took their own lives. With the help of tribal leader Nadio (Ambrosio Vilhalva), they organize a protest and soon a band of Guarani peoples are occupying a farm owned by Moreira (Leonardo Medeiros) and his spouse (Chiara Caselli). Nadio insists that Moreira's farm is on land that once belonged to the Guarani tribe and was stolen from them; however, Moreira and his wife are racists unsympathetic to the Indians' cause, and as the conflict between the farmer and the Guarani becomes more heated, Nadio's alcoholism makes him increasingly unstable. BirdWatchers -- La terra degli uomini rossi was an official selection at the 2008 Venice Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
Bechis, a former political exile from Argentina with a clear anti-colonialist bent, may be angered by the Guarani's plight, but his movie - like these people - is contemplative, patient and forcefully determined.
Birdwatchers is impressively filmed and never less than interesting. If it has a weakness, it's that this is a familiar sermon: Save the rain forest. Respect its inhabitants.
Birdwatchers is an unusual and sympathetic exploration of a diminishing society driven to near extinction by capitalism and colonialism. And if it provokes action, then it's a job well done.
Makes its point very effectively in the first 10 minutes and has subsequent difficulties convincing as a full-length narrative feature; a documentary treatment could have been more illuminating.
BirdWatchers just about manages to hold your interest, but it can't seem to decide whether it's a contemporary western or a retelling of Romeo and Juliet.
Marco Bechis' crusading film sets up some fairly predictable clashes. But it's redeemed by the casting of actual Guarani tribespeople in the lead roles - and as actors, the Guarani prove themselves superb naturals.
By the end, it is leaning towards melodramatic simplification; but its broad sympathies, startling landscapes and non-professional cast make up for that.
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