Pajaros de verano (2018)

Directed by: Cristina Gallego, Ciro Guerra | 125 minutes | drama | Actors: Carmiña Martínez, José Acosta, Natalia Reyes, Jhon Narváez, Greider Meza, José Vicente, Juan Bautista Martínez, Miguel Viera, Sergio Coen, Aslenis Márquez, José Naider, Yanker Díaz, Víctor Montero, Joaquín Ramón, Jorge Las Epicarero,

In the northeast of Colombia, the desert of La Guajira was abandoned in the late 1960s. The original inhabitants of the region, the Wayúu, make a living by herding goats, keeping cows and donkeys, perhaps trading some coffee. They have their own rules and customs, their own language (Wayuunaiki) and dress, and the demarcation between their world and that of all people outside it (the alijunas) is clear.

During a village ceremony centering on the young Zaida, the brash Rapayet catches his eye on her. Mother Úrsula suspiciously tells him what the dowry will be to marry her daughter: no fewer than thirty goats, twenty cows, two mules and five necklaces are required. Maybe she sets the bar so high on purpose; she doesn’t expect anyone to be able to do it. ‘Pájaros de verano’, from the director of ‘El abrazo de la serpiente’, begins as a calm drama based on the Wayúu family traditions. But the Colombian entry to the Oscars tells a much bigger story. As we follow the women of Úrsula’s clan through their rituals and mystical wisdoms, Rapayet and his buddy Moisés seize their opportunity to make some serious money selling a large batch of marijuana to a bunch of American visitors.

From then on, the traditional Colombian decor slowly changes into a Greek tragedy full of drugs, violence, honour, revenge and greed. Like a true family epic, the story is told in five beautifully filmed chapters.

Ciro Guerra (‘Los viajes del viento’ and ‘El abrazo de la serpiente’) and his (now ex-)wife Cristina Gallego had worked together for years; Gallego was a producer on previous Guerra films. They have been disturbed for some time by the popularity and romanticization of the drug trade in Colombia. Tourists flocking to Pablo Escobar tours, the countless television series and films about Escobar or his successors. With ‘Pájaros de verano’ they wanted to show a different side. Tell a more realistic family story that starts small but ends big.

During a meeting between representatives of different Wayúu families, one of the heads of the family cites a folk legend: the bird Utta fell because the chains he was wearing had become too heavy – increasingly, due to his growing wealth. An Icarus story of universal value, which also feels urgent here, in the north of Colombia. Just like the timeless and topical statements with which the narrator, a blind goat herder, closes: ‘Let no gold shine brighter than our soul, no gun ring louder than our voices.’

Without glorifying gangster life or oversimplifying the situation, the directors convincingly focus on the devastating effects of the international drug trade on communities like this, which cannot withstand so many intrusive temptations.

Because can a community cling to customs and traditional forms of protection such as honesty and conscience suddenly no longer have any meaning? What if until then a man was a man, a word and a word, but this no longer applies? Then there is nothing left that the community is built on. These are the questions the film asks: Can communities hold on to their death customs when suddenly someone dies, not from old age or disease, but when healthy young men are killed in droves by violence? Is there still an opportunity to treat each body with the usual care? How many traditionally designed communities have been destroyed by the rapid intrusion of firearms and alcohol, often resulting in a highly toxic combination? ‘Pájaros de verano’ also shows that not one person is better or worse than another: the original inhabitants are no more noble than the outsiders. They too are touched by greed, revenge, they too know weakness towards the temptations. But it does show how vulnerable some communities are, whose very existence is based on certain precepts. How disruptive big money, liquor and firearms can be, and sadly the foundations on which communities have been built for hundreds, maybe thousands of years, cannot withstand it.

Guerra has previously presented storytellers (singing or otherwise) as important characters, thus doing justice to the musical and oral traditions of Colombia, a land of stories, and stressing the importance of storytelling. For example, ‘Los viajes del viento’ revolved around the role of messenger for the Vallenato musicians from Northern Colombia. In ‘Pájaros de verano’ it is the goat herder who ‘tells not to forget’. In fact, for the Wayúu, the word is sacred; a ‘messenger of the word’ should never be killed. Guerra also touches on his own position: he also tells – albeit with a modern medium – the stories that should not be forgotten.