La Terre des hommes rouges

I try to watch all World cinema films shown for free on BBC4 and BirdWatchers was no exception. Within two minutes I'd fallen in with it, its relevancy - and irreverence.

From the opening tourist-pleasing shots to when this group of indigenous Guarani Indians put on T- shirts and board trucks to go look for work, I knew that this film had attitude and was worth sticking with. A natural wicked humour shone through from the non-professional cast, as if unscripted.

Yes, I found the suicides difficult to cope with and their subsequent cool treatment. I also found the attempts of conveying spiritual and religious interjections, with juddery camera work and awkward sound effects off-putting and misplaced.

Leaving the Reservation that's set aside for them and illegally making camp on sacred ground that's now fenced off and deforested, they fall foul of the European landowner. The landowner's children do nothing all day except swim where they like - and upsetting rituals of the tribes-people and riding scooters. They're spoilt and brattish. One of the teenage girls taunts and tries to seduce the trainee shaman, whose devout law is not to sully himself with pleasures of the flesh, let alone from another race, and definitely not from a family seen as an enemy. He's often torn with both his tribal responsibilities and his attractions for the girl. Some of these scenes don't really work very well but I suppose they did convey youthful apprehensions.

Later in the film there were quite a few skirmishes between groups and I have to confess I lost track of who/what and why they were doing what they were. It seemed to end on a frenetic note and a stark written epilogue flashes up, that is both sobering and alarming. There is no doubt a huge political and ecological message within the film's 100 minutes and largely this has been put across as best it can. Certainly better than a western documentary maker spending a month only focusing on the juicy bits and it's a pity that more people won't get to see it - and to learn and appreciate this people's plight.

The opening aerial shot of virgin Amazon forest with white people going for a boat ride to enjoy their bird watching trip would either jolt viewers to take notice of things to come or would make sensible people believe that what they are watching is not cinema but harsh reality which they cannot hardly choose to ignore.A modern day visual masterpiece about the daily struggle to survive by Guaraní-Kaiowá people,"Birdwatchers" can rightly be summarized as a white man's assault against Indian people.Due to Marco Bechis' controlled direction one can feel tremendous energy in the never ending game of life and death which takes place at a time when native Indian people are staking politically correct claims on their ancient lands.It is precisely this aspect of Marco Bechis' film which brings it closer to "Wo Die Gruenen Ameisen Trauemen" directed by legendary German director Werner Herzog.As Marco Bechis has set his film in Amazon rain forest zone,it is quite inevitable that comparisons will surely be made with films like Aguirre,Der Zorn Gottes directed by legendary genius Werner Herzog and "The Emerald Forest" directed by veteran John Boorman. However,Marco Bechis' film is quite different from these films as he has given human face to all tricky questions related to the existence and day to day survival of Indian people.This is the reason why issues of modernity, urbanism and consumerism have all been nicely tackled in this film.

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 d**k'. As he has sex with Mami, she is laughing shouting 'long d**k!' 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.

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BIRDWATCHERS is an extremely strong narrative drama about the struggle of native Brazilian Indians against globalization. Fantastic cinematography, soundtrack, and performances. The dialogue can be sparse at times, but that is appropriate for the characters. A very engaging and interesting film that every true cineast should see. Not for people who are looking for mainstream Hollywood fare. Truly one of the stronger narrative dramas to come out in the last 3-4 years. This film should have a good run at arthouses and then on DVD. If you haven't seen it at festivals, you should definitely try to catch it when it goes into theaters.

A dull first time, poor dialogues, ordinary plot and mediocre casting make this movie a second-rate title; by the way I appreciated it for a skill: director Marco Bechis is good not to take sides in the argument setting against two positions and showing all the troubles and the motivations which each delegate of the two sects argues. Unfortunately all this is not enough to make a title interesting. I think if you have not read something about the plot before watching maybe you can't understand what the title is dealing with, to the contrary understanding it at the last ten minutes doesn't permit to consider it a movie to see. Finally a consideration about Indians: this is not a movie in which they kill, massacre, slaughter everybody: they are represented like a civil folk, with their difficulties and their daily feelings: it's out of customary cliché of wild Indians!