The Twisted Journey of Death and Rebirth

Rebirth, corruption, and the loss of innocence take the center stage in Birdshot (2016). Directed by Mikhail Red, the coming-of-age thriller follows teenager Maya (Mary Joy Apostol) as she struggles to find independence from her father Diego (Ku Aquino) and a newbie policeman Domingo (Arnold Reyes) as he adjusts to the ways of Philippine police mentored by seasoned cop Mendoza (John Arcilla). The characters move against the backdrop of a serene and peaceful rural area around a Philippine Eagle sanctuary with mounds of injustice and corruption brimming just below the surface.

The film opens with Diego teaching Maya how to shoot birds. He tells her that she needs to be independent and capable in case something happens to him. With this, Maya sets out to prove herself by defying the one order she was given: never go beyond the fences near their land. She enters, finds a majestic Philippine Eagle and shoots it with an uncomfortably pleasured expression.

Meanwhile, rookie police Domingo begins his job at the local police with his principles firmly in place. He and his new partner Mendoza are investigating a mysterious disappearance of a bus and its passengers. With Domingo's determination and Mendoza's brutality, they begin to find out that the disappearance of the passengers is larger than both of them.

Out of the blue, the authorities above them reassigned them to a new case: an eagle disappearance. Frustrated, Domingo tries to juggle both cases but the deeper he gets involved with the disappearances, the looser his principles become.

For Maya, the eagle spiraled her life out of order forcing her to grow up and take actions for herself. As she and her father get caught up in the blossoming brutality of Domingo and the police, she takes matters in her own hands.

The first and the biggest theme presented was the loss of innocence. The main conflicts that both protagonists had to face was their loss of pureness to the world. For Maya, it was both the arrival of her womanhood and maturity and her killing of the Haribon. For Domingo, it was his descent into corruption not even a long time into the police system. The movie's view of society is brutal, unforgiving, and full of injustice. And all this is thinly veiled with pleasing imagery of nature and the beautiful Philippine rural areas.

The concept of rebirth is also pretty heavy as the characters go through their taste of the world. Maya's life, upon her killing of the eagle, went through so many changes and challenges like her father's torture and her dog Bala dying. She went through many trials that the woman holding a gun to Domingo's face at the end of the film is nowhere near the girl who was being taught how to shoot birds in the opening shot.

Blood seems to be the exact signal of rebirth. In Maya's case, it can be seen when she first gets her period. She takes a bath on the same river where the movie began, portrayed as some sort of baptism. This was also the same place where she cut off her hair as she accepted that she had no use for using them to attract men. By the movie's end the innocent girl who had killed a protected bird knowingly spared the life of a person who destroyed her life.

For Domingo, violence and the rotten system was the catalyst of his rebirth. He began as a principled man. He persevered to solve injustice, was against violence, and was genuinely a good person. His very first exposure to his job was his partner's violent way of interrogation. As the movie progressed and his first case was taken from him as he had begun digging too deep, the corrupt system began to take a toll on his life. His rebirth to a violent agent of the system fittingly began with a violent interrogation, too. He tortured Maya's father to get answers out of him. To signal his full turn, the movie cleverly used the photograph of one of the farmers he was looking for. Domingo completely crumpled the last of his purity in his bloody fist.

Another theme is the looming presence of superiors in the movie. Every major conflict in the movie is caused by a superior that is only hinted at by the movie. Domingo's boss saying he had a boss, too; the Manila investigators who would supposedly find the answers to the missing bus and the missing people; the danger in the town that prompted Diego to teach Maya how to shoot; and the owners of the disputed hacienda that had farmers killed and had threatened Domingo. It seemed that every person in the film was constantly reminded that someone was more powerful than them.

There were a lot of parallels between Maya and Domingo but one of the things that interested me the most was their search for independence, freedom, and information. All were withheld by their mentors. Maya was not allowed to go beyond the fences for a reason she was not told about. Domingo was forbidden to go further with his investigation of the missing people as the information was told to be dangerous. Upon breaking their orders, reality seemed to punish both characters. Their continued search for freedom caused their very trials and hardships. It was a very interesting study of how people fight for freedom in a slippery slope. One could come out of the fight stronger and freer and another could become a part of the very system that takes freedom.

The movie also lightly plays with the supernatural and the mythical to help portray the characters' journey. As if in a hero's journey, there was a sequence when both Maya and Domingo were visited by an aged person bearing gifts. Maya was visited by her grandmother and offered her an idea of her womanhood. She was told that her hair would be the key for her to attract a man to marry. Domingo was given a photograph of a missing farmer as a reminder of justice that he was determined to seek out. Both characters decided to ignore these at some point in their journey. Maya cut off her hair, saying she had no use of it and Diego destroying justice in his injustice-tainted fist.

Birdshot was an incredibly layered film. Despite its simple story, it manages to tell it in the most interesting and gripping way. It's also a very insightful film about the loss of innocence, the fight for freedom, with surprisingly clever and subtle social commentary that draws from real events and doesn't hold back.