Birdshot

This movie portrays how things work in real life, in a very sensitive way. Excellent movie.

The film about the life of a young woman from rural area of the Philippines. She lives with her father who wants to prepare her for adulthood and teach her to be self sufficient. The world turns out to be far more complicated and dangerous than she can imagine at her age. Her actions will eventually draw the attention of local authorities. She and her father appear as victims of a police force whose priorities are at odds with the interests of the community. Rather than spelling out every detail, a subtle symbolism carried the events along as we are allowed, for the most part, to draw our own conclusions.

I don't think I watched alot of movies from the Philippines, it's not a country I would immediately associate with good movies but actually this one wasn't bad. Okay the plot has some flaws and issues but overal the story is entertaining. Maybe a bit slow and not fully developed but there is a level of suspense on what actually happened. The acting was better than I thought it would be, not that I understand Filipino (even though there are alot of Spanish and English words in that language), but they looked genuine and believable. Nice cinematography, okay actors, and an entertaining story that could have had a better development.

The corruption and arbitrarieness besides the lack of care for ethic and moral values shown in this film about the procedures carried out by the Filipino police must be a wake up call for the Government of this country to make amendments because of the image this movie projects to the World. The script is good, original, well structured and with a nice imagery as well as its unexpected ending to close paralell stories

This film, was difficult to watch after recently seeing "Despair". Both portrayed the insane brutality, of which we humans are capable. While "Despair" was obviously a contrived work of fiction, "Birdshot" showed a very real situation in the world, where groups feel threatened enough by those in power above them, to abandon their ethical or "moral" principles to survive. It makes me ask,"Who started this chain of submission and why did no one try to stop it, before it got out of control ?". I think of Soviet Russia and how "Party" members murdered so many of their own citizens under Stalin's orders. How far down the hierarchy did this have to go , until it was too late to reverse it ? Are we so needy for social standing and recognition, that we will go along with hideous acts to satisfy this ? Do we value our brief and inconsequential lives so much, that we will not risk them to save so many others, from "immorality" ?. This film, within a very small milieu brings up these difficult questions very powerfully.