Drunken birds

Willy, a young member of a Mexican cartel, ill-fatedly falls in love with Marlena, who recently wed his boss. When this young love is discovered, Willy and Marlena flee from Mexico separately. Out of fear of being discovered by her husband, Marlena tells no one of her hiding place, and Willy has to go find her. He arrives in Quebec because he has hopes of finding her in Montreal, where an aunt of Marlena lives. To survive, he goes to work as a seasonal worker at the vegetable farm run by Richard Bécotte, who hires around twenty Mexican workers every year to work his outstretched fields. Richard Bécotte and his wife, Julie, are known to be nice employers and they treat their workers correctly and provide them with a decent roof over their head.

But personally there is trouble in paradise in house Bécotte. Richard’s wife, Julie, feels trapped in an unhappy and sterile marriage and she has her eye on newcomer Willy, who reminds her of a former lover. In the meantime, their rebellious daughter, Léa, who is still a minor, looks up freedom in Montreal in bad company, where she ends up in a disastrous adventure.

First, Drunken Birds is about a man who would move mountains to find the love of his life, but gets wrapped up in a racial drama. The film is constructed brilliantly with many flashbacks and reveals its secrets slowly. Through ingeniously framed images, the director shows us the bucolic beauty of the Canadian countryside, but at the same time also delivers social commentary on the position of migrants. Despite the magical-realistic elements and romantic undertone that make the film dreamier, Drunken Birds is an authentic and honest portrait of a side of Canada that is unknown to us.