85
Metascore
27 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100CineVueMartyn ConterioCineVueMartyn ConterioBirds of Passage is an enthralling, powerful statement and lamentation on the drugs trade’s inevitable encroachment upon on indigenous peoples and how gangsters casually destroyed them.
- 100The PlaylistJessica KiangThe PlaylistJessica KiangGuerra and Gallego’s film is no dusty period piece, it is wildly alive, yet it reminds us that no matter how modern we are, there are ancient songs our forebears knew whose melodies still rush in our blood. We are not creatures of one era or another or of one place or another, we are only ever birds of passage between our mythic pasts and our unwritten futures, being tossed around by the wind
- 91The Film StageRory O'ConnorThe Film StageRory O'ConnorAs effectively violent and entertaining as Birds may be, there is a real current of bitterness and tragedy running through it. That bitterness speaks not of the physical colonization we saw with the conquistadors and rubber barons of Serpent, but more of a sort of colonization of ideas.
- 90VarietyPeter DebrugeVarietyPeter DebrugeFew films have captured quite so powerfully the tension between the old and new worlds — a feat Birds of Passage accomplishes while simultaneously allowing audiences to channel the Wayuu’s surrealistic view of their surroundings, where spirits walk the earth, and wise women interpret their dreams.
- 80The GuardianJordan HoffmanThe GuardianJordan HoffmanIn the most reductive way, it is another mafia story. But as with their previous film, it is the specificity that counts, and while certain genre tendencies prevent the narrative from truly unmooring, hardly a scene goes by without something fundamentally familiar being rendered in a unique fashion.
- 80The Hollywood ReporterJordan MintzerThe Hollywood ReporterJordan MintzerThe drama feels a bit leisurely and distant at times, and the film runs a little long, yet it intelligently and assuredly explores how longstanding traditions can be gradually upended by drugs, money and outside influences.
- 75The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzThe Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzThe impact of modern vice upon the Wayuu is a captivating tale never told before, and the final few minutes are brutal in the best possible way