Review #270: 'Birdwatchers' (2008)

Set amongst the Guarani-Kaiowa community in their native Brazil, Birdwatchers depicts the breakdown between the white settlers and the ever-decreasing tribe. Tired of living in a designated settlement, stoic community leader Nadio (Ambrosio Vilhava) decides to take back the land that their ancestors are buried on. Only the land has been taken over by white farmers who are making a wealthy living from the land. Tensions increase further when the young Osvaldo (Pedro Abrisio Da Silva), who is learning to cut out indulging in things like red meat and women to become a shamen, begins a friendship with the farmers daughter.

Over the past number of years, hundreds of the Guarani-Kaiowa tribe have committed suicide. Their religion is based around a God they call Nande Ru, and they worship the land they live on and so respect. Like many indigenous tribes, they have seen their land raped and poached, and have been driven off to seek underpaid labour. The film depicts the suicides early on, as Nadio finds two women hanging from nearby trees. He is not shocked, as he has seen this happened many times before. The film gets its real power from the fact that this is reality, and shocked me at my ignorance and the failure of any real coverage of this decreasing community.

The film is also funny, beautiful and moving. Most hilarious is the scene in which Mami (Eliane Juca Da Silva) seduces one of the farmers in order to get hold of his gun. He is seen as a bit of an idiot throughout the film, and Mami and the other tribeswomen mockingly dub him as 'long dick'. As he has sex with Mami, she is laughing shouting 'long dick!' at him. It's a strangely funny scene. The actors are probably so effective due to the fact that these are actual members of the Guarani-Kaiowa tribe, and had to be introduced to the concept of cinema before receiving their brief acting lessons. I suspect they didn't need acting lessons, and their emotions and history are written all over their faces.

The film wisely doesn't show everything so simply and one-sided. It is a complex issue that deserves a complex depiction. The farmer Moreira (Leonardo Medeiros), dismayed at the tribe settling on the land where he grows his crops, explains how this is the farm he inherited from generations before him. The land belongs to him as much as it does to the tribe. This is the only land he knows, and what a beautiful land it is. The Brazilian landscape is filmed with a natural beauty, which allows us to understand why the Guarani-Kaiowa worship the land so. A powerful film, and when director Marco Bechis flashes up the charity dedicated to preserving the tribe at the end of the film, it will fill you with guilt that you can live in a world that would fail to recognise their struggle and plight.


Directed by: Marco Bechis
Starring: Pedro Abrísio Da Silva, Ambrósio Vilhava, Eliane Juca Da Silva, Leonardo Medeiros
Country: Italy/Brazil

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie