A drug story told in a unique voice

Birds of Passage takes us deep into Colombia's Indigenous world.

Perhaps you think you've seen every possible permutation of every possible story revolving around the Colombian drug trade. If so, think again.

Colombian directors Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego have teamed for Birds of Passage, an entirely fresh movie that spans almost 20 years as it tells the story of how one member of the Indigenous Wayuu of Columbia becomes involved in the sale of large quantities of marijuana.

Beginning their compelling story in the 1960s, the directors introduce us to Rapayet (Jose Acosta), a young man whose sole ambition is to marry the beautiful Zaida (Natalia Reyes), a young woman we meet after she's liberated from the year of isolation that precedes her entry into full womanhood.

As determined as he is, Rapayet has nothing to offer. He doesn't have enough wealth to assemble a dowry and he faces a future mother-in-law problem. Like many mothers, Zaida's authoritarian mom (Carmina Martinez) thinks her daughter can do better; i.e., someone she believes to be more steeped in Wayuu ways.

But Rapayet won't be deterred. He and a non-Wayuu pal (Jhon Narvaez) begin selling marijuana to American Peace Corps volunteers. Their business quickly expands and Rapayet emerges as a drug kingpin and a husband.

Rapayet's ascendance leads to an alliance with another relative. Juan Bautista Martinez's Anibal, a big shot who presides over another Wayuu family, and who grows marijuana. Rapayet supplies an outlet for Anibal's crop with an export business that relies on Americans who pilot small planes out of Colombia.

Birds of Passage feels wholly original because the upward and downward spirals it charts are set against a backdrop of Indigenous culture that's detailed with bracing authenticity by Guerra and Gallego. Moreover, the movie's haunting landscapes lend near-primal significance to the conflict between ancient ways and the unforgiving demands of modernity.

When Raphayet moves his family -- which now includes his mother-in-law and children -- away from its village surroundings, they take up residence in a new, sparsely modern home in the middle of nowhere. Images of the house with its blindingly white interiors underscore what's happened. In accumulating wealth, Rapayet has isolated himself and his family from the communal nourishment that has sustained the Wayuu for centuries.

At the same time, Gallego and Guerra touch many of the bases of standard drug dramas: the wayward associate whose rampant misbehavior must be dealt with by Rapayet; a spoiled son (Greider Meza) who grows into an alarmingly obnoxious young man; a mother-in-law who tries to maintain control over her son-in-law and who most vividly embodies the tension between corrupting new ways and time-tested tradition.

In the drug trade, violence always remains close at hand and plenty of it arises as the movie follows its cast of professional and non-professional actors. No one in the cast seems out-of-place and Acosta gives a performance that's convincingly reserved. There's nothing showy about him and that makes Birds of Passage all the more credible.

It should help to know that Guerra also directed Embrace of the Serpent, a 2015 movie of astonishing beauty and unforced exoticism. Once again, he -- this time with a co-director -- takes us into a world that we don't know. Their achievement qualifies as substantial. Birds of Passage tells us much about the tragic destruction wrought by a trade that threatens communities, leaving heartbreak and corpses scattered in its wake.

Confronting the Amazon's mysteries

Colombia's Embrace of the Serpent takes on two compelling river journeys.

The Colombian film Embrace of the Serpent sees white, western civilization as terminally exploitative. Moving deep into the Amazonian jungle, this rich and unsettling movie focuses on the life that's being trampled and squandered as rampant colonialism gobbles up the world's resources and murders its primal dreams.

Virtually a journey into an alien world, Embrace of the Serpent also reminds us that tribal life in the jungles had a striking abundance and that its loss does irreparable harm to the human spirit.

Photographing in black-and-white, director Ciro Guerra and cinematographer David Gallego take us on a trip down the Amazon: The result is a film steeped in exoticism and full of imminent dangers.

Guerra and his co-writer Jacques Toulemonde chronicle two different trips into the jungle, shifting between stories that are united by the presence of a shaman named Karamakate.

As a young man and, later, as an aging shaman, Karamakate -- played by two actors -- leads two different white men on searches for the Yakruna plant, a rare species known for producing psychedelic effects when ingested. Ultimately, the Yakruna becomes a vehicle for a white men to be schooled by the natural world, which Karamakate insists must be heard, not conquered.

The first journey begins in 1909. Young Karamakate (Nilbio Torres) is approached by Manduca (Yauenku Miguel), a native who has had exposure to whites. Manteca wants Karamakate to save the life of a German (Jan Bijvoet) explorer who has taken ill. Only the Yakruna plant can stave off death.

This white character -- Theo by name -- is based on Theodor Koch-Grunberg, a real Amazon explorer who wrote extensively about his encounters with indigenous peoples along the Amazon.

In the second story, Antonio Bolivar Salvador plays an aged but still imposing Karamakate; he agrees to help an American botanist (Brionne Davis) search for the Yakruna plant. Davis' character says he has devoted his life to plants, something Karamakate finds admirable.

But like his predecessor, Davis' Evan doesn't always find it easy to accept Karamakate's sternly applied discipline.

In both stories, a representative of an invasive civilization is said to be more interested in robbing the forest of rubber than in appreciating the lives of native peoples. And both white men are burdened by excess baggage -- suitcases full of equipment -- that they insist on piling into Karamakate's canoe.

By the time we meet the older Karamakate, he has begun to complain about having forgotten the ways of his people. He, too, may have lost his connection with ancient secrets.

Western religion is not spared. In one 1909 scene, Karamakate and his companion stumble upon a Christian missionary who abuses native children. In later scenes, we meet a strange group of cultists led by a man who proclaims himself the messiah and who seems to have submitted entirely to his darkest impulses.

Both of these incidents dramatize the distortions that occur when the values of the outside world penetrate the jungle and are allowed to marinate in isolation.

No description of events does justice to this odd and absorbing movie. Daringly, Embrace of the Serpent tries to cut away the obscurations that obscure the jungle's mystery.

I suppose, then, that it's possible to characterize Embrace of the Serpent, which seems aimed at western audiences, as an instructive and necessary act of trespass.