'Drunken Birds' is artfully directed, a tapestry of challenging emotions balanced by dramatic cinematography offering hope.
The opening scene of a man fleeing in a car on fire is the best of the year. It suggested a stylish crime drama, a man escaping the local drug cartel. However, the spark is a woman and thus, for a while, it becomes a passionate romance.
But with our Mexican protagonist's (Jorge Antonio Guerrero) arrival in Canada, in search of his love who has escaped her husband, it transforms into an immigrant story that, initially, seems unlike others we know.
Genre blurs again, the farmer's family problems gaining equal attention - his failing marriage, his wife's infidelity, his daughter's coming-of-age frustration.
The stories of the lovers, the exploited immigrant and a family in crisis could have easily been three movies. But they're skillfully intermingled towards an explosive ending.
I cannot properly explain how I felt emotionally except that it was the same as when I watched director Carlos Reygadas' epic 'Our Time', beauty and distraught combined.
In relation to other good Canadian movies, this isn't as high as 'Incendies' and 'Monsieur Lazhar' but respectively edges above 'Antigone' and 'The Barbarian Invasions'. I may give the story a 7 out of 10 rating but direction and cinematography deserves 8.
The opening scene of a man fleeing in a car on fire is the best of the year. It suggested a stylish crime drama, a man escaping the local drug cartel. However, the spark is a woman and thus, for a while, it becomes a passionate romance.
But with our Mexican protagonist's (Jorge Antonio Guerrero) arrival in Canada, in search of his love who has escaped her husband, it transforms into an immigrant story that, initially, seems unlike others we know.
Genre blurs again, the farmer's family problems gaining equal attention - his failing marriage, his wife's infidelity, his daughter's coming-of-age frustration.
The stories of the lovers, the exploited immigrant and a family in crisis could have easily been three movies. But they're skillfully intermingled towards an explosive ending.
I cannot properly explain how I felt emotionally except that it was the same as when I watched director Carlos Reygadas' epic 'Our Time', beauty and distraught combined.
In relation to other good Canadian movies, this isn't as high as 'Incendies' and 'Monsieur Lazhar' but respectively edges above 'Antigone' and 'The Barbarian Invasions'. I may give the story a 7 out of 10 rating but direction and cinematography deserves 8.