Birds of Passage

Life Through Movies #14

The other day someone around my age say: “I'm worried the new generation won't know what it is to work hard, learn from failures, and have to fight for what they want”. Being in my early 30s, this is a fairly recent phenomenon for me, as I've always been the recipient of such claims. Snowflakes, low-attention span, fill in the blank with whatever "weakness" the older generation sees in us. I reminded the person that it was something once said about us, yet here we are.

A broader and related trend is that of the maxi-traditionalist people saying "Oh, we don’t make buildings like we used to”¹. Or, "I only read books that are at least 10,000 years old." The other side of the coin pretty much wants to wipe out everything that came before and replace it with whatever is the most innovative, shiny or different.

This clash where the old generation perceives the new generation as either a threat to values, weaker, more disrespectful, or just less-than is nothing new, probably as old as sedentary humanity. As the poet Hesiod said, circa 700 BC:

“I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on the frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words. When I was a boy, we were taught to be discrete and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise and impatient of restraint.”

Or funnily exemplified by the History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore.

This generational tension has been represented in various forms through art and stories. Cinema is no exception. A common variation is to frame it with the backdrop of generations within an extended family, with an element of business or crime involved. We have The Godfather, The Sopranos, one could argue even Succession falls in the category.

A movie with a fascinating approach to this theme is Birds of Passage. Set with the Wayuu people in the northern Colombian desert, we see how the drug money and ambition infiltrates within two sides and generations of the tribe, unleashing all kinds of mayhem and murder. Add a surreal layer with the cosmovision of this tribe, and you get one of the most unique retellings of this generational tension.

In real life, consequences are seldom this bloody, but just as gray. There’s some truth on each side, as we should definitely preserve certain values and traditions (and books), while also continuing with the progressive, moving-forward trademark of our civilization. It’s in choosing what you keep and what you toss where the matter lies, and where we should explore and have our convictions on.

I still open the car door for my wife. I watch very old movies. Also, I’m against mind-numbing 9-5, work for works sake. And I wrote this article with AI. Kidding aside, I constantly wonder how I’ll react when I have a son telling me he wants to marry his AI girlfriend. Will I then exclaim to the heavens that the new generation really lost it now? It remains to be seen, but it will certainly not be the end.

As the title of the movie suggests, alluding to the migratory nature of our existence, of our generations, we’re only here in passing.

LOOK OUT FOR:

• The house scene. As violent, raw, gripping as it gets. The Godfather level, desert setting

• Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra’s direction. They manage to portray the Wayuu in a very human, flawed way, with majestic cinematography, using at least 30% of the cast and crew from local Wayuu people while getting amicably divorced during the filming. A high-wire act they manage to pull off perfectly

• It’s not the only time they’ve done it. If you want to further explore movies made by this duo, my great friend Thomas Plaatsman wrote about the Top 3 Colombian Movies on his blog Cultural Reads, the most in-depth, comprehensive and specific movie, book & music tips from countries all around the world I’ve read

• The score of the film is also unique, with local instruments and electronic samples meshing in a primal yet modern soundscape. It was made by Leo Heiblum, who I coincidentally met last week because he made the sound design of a friend’s documentary about Philip Glass and the Huicholes tribe in Mexico (which is another kind of clash, a more peaceful one)

Enjoy!

1. As this account constantly suggests