Film / Birdshot

Birdshot is a Filipino coming-of-age thriller released in 2016, directed by Mikhail Red. It stars Mary Joy Apostol and Arnold Reyes.

The story is told from the perspective of two people: a sheltered, teenage farm girl named Maya and young, newly-recruited police officer named Domingo. Maya's father Diego is a caretaker who lives in a rustic shack with his daughter, housed right next to a gated sanctuary that preserves the endangered national bird of the Philippines, the háribon (the Philippine eagle). Diego teaches his daughter how to hunt and fend for herself, and one day she decides to test her skills by sneaking into the sanctuary and deliberately gunning down an eagle, completely unaware of its species' endangerment.

Meanwhile, Domingo and his aggressive partner Mendoza are investigating a case involving a missing bus and its ten vanished passengers. As soon as they start making progress, however, their commander orders them to stop the investigation completely and focus on an entirely new case: the mysterious disappearance of a háribon at the sanctuary. Thus, the two stories begin to collide in a gripping tale of violence and corruption.

The film was eventually released on Netflix in 2018. It holds the distinction of being the first Filipino film added there.

Birdshot provides examples of:

• 20 Minutes into the Past: It's never stated exactly when this is set, but the police service is called the "Integrated National Police" rather than "Philippine National Police" like it is today, its uniforms are old khaki issue (today they're dark blue and striped), there are no computers or cellphones anywhere, the cars are also old boxy models, old battery-operated transistor radios are still in use, as are monochrome film photographs. Put together, these roughly put the film most likely in …
  • The '80s: The PNP today was known as the INP back then, in its transitional phase from the Martial Law-era Philippine Constabulary.
• An Aesop:
  • With the right amount of pressure, any goodhearted person can be corrupted.
  • Jumping into adulthood without any guidance or experience is a reckless move. Let your personal experiences shape you into maturity.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: On one end of the spectrum, we have Maya, who's young and naive but nonetheless responsible for deliberately killing an endangered bird just to prove that she's capable of hunting. On the other end, we have the corrupt police department, who are willing to execute innocent farmers for peacefully disputing about their land, and threaten to kill a fellow officer and his family for being hot on their trail. And right in the middle, we have Domingo, who starts off as a well-meaning cop but slowly slides towards a darker morality as the pressure of his department gets the better of him.
• Canine Companion: Maya's beloved dog Bala, who rarely leaves his owner's side.
• Coming of Age Story: For Maya, who starts off as a naive, sheltered teenager but slowly learns to live on her own and fend for herself, albeit under some tragic circumstances.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Mendoza brutally beats Diego within an inch of his life to get him to confess about the gun that was used to kill the eagle. He then asks his fellow officers for their rings so that he can beat him with a makeshift brass knuckle. Before he gets the chance, Domingo asks if he can do the beating instead, signifying his fall into police corruption.
• Central Theme: Corruption. The police department is full of bad cops who eventually twist Domingo into one of them by threatening the lives of him and his family. On top of that, they prioritize a case regarding the killing of a national bird over an investigation concerning missing citizens, mainly because they're the reason why those citizens went missing in the first place. Symbolically speaking, they cover up their heinous deeds with delusions of national pride.
• Dirty Cop: A major antagonistic force in the story. Every cop that Domingo works with, from his partner Mendoza to the commander De la Paz, is either corrupt, abusive, violent, or a combination of the three. After a while, even Domingo himself starts to stoop to their dirty methods as means of making progress with the case. At the end, we see just how unforgivably evil these cops are with the revelation that they were the ones responsible for the missing bus, having gunned down every passenger (later revealed to be farmers) for attempting to fight for their land. This is why De la Paz wanted to drop the case completely, to cover up the fact that it was their doing all along.
• Downer Ending: No happy endings here. Diego and Mendoza are both killed in a firefight, and though Maya is given the opportunity to kill Domingo for the deaths of her father and dog, she chooses to spare his life, allowing him to walk away an emotionally-broken man. The film ends with Maya completely alone, now left to survive on her own as her father taught her. Oh, and that missing bus of people that Domingo was investigating? It turns out that they were secretly executed by the police themselves, and sloppily buried in the sanctuary housing the eagles.
• Endangered Species: The Real Life Philippine eagle, which also serves as the country's national bird. The conflict kicks off when Maya kills one with her father's gun, putting them on the police department's radar.
• Film Noir: This film could qualify for the genre, with its themes of complex investigations, entrenched corruption and abuses of power on the part of the authorities, more questions than answers, and no real or lasting solutions to systemic problems.
  • Sunshine Noir: It's the Philippines so a lot of the time the tropical sun shines pretty brightly, but that don't make it any less bleak.
• Foreshadowing: De la Paz is very insistent that Domingo and Mendoza forego the bus investigation in favor of the eagle killing. When he discovers that Domingo is still pursuing the case regardless of his orders, he and the other officers react with hostility, to the point where they burn a plant outside of his house as a means of threatening the lives of his family. Now why would they resort to such aggressive behavior unless they were the criminals that Domingo was pursuing?
• Great Escape: After Diego is imprisoned, his fellow cellmates get him involved in their plan to break out of jail. They pull it off, but not without a few casualties.
• Holiday in Cambodia: Set in the rural, poverty-ridden, and quite-underdeveloped Philippines in The '80s, on the edge of a (supposedly) protected forest, and due to its time setting implicitly also under a dictatorship.
• Important Haircut: Subverted. Maya almost chops off her long hair since she has no use for it, but she stops when she suddenly hears the call of the eagles.
• Karma Houdini: The murder of the bus passengers at the hands of the corrupt police department is left unresolved as Domingo never discovers the bodies, while Maya (who does discover the bodies) is unaware of the entire situation. In short, the Dirty Cops get away with everything in the end.
• Police Brutality: Mendoza chops off the entire hand of a witness he's interrogating, and that's just for starters.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Downplayed since it doesn't last very long, but after Maya watches Domingo shoot Bala in the head, she takes out all her anger and grief on a flock of ducks, blasting them away one by one with her father's gun.
• The Reveal: De la Paz forced Domingo to drop the missing bus case because the police themselves were the true culprits behind it. The passengers were actually farmers who were on their way to Manila to fight for the ownership of their land. On the way there, they were pulled over by the cops, executed all at once, and buried in the sanctuary.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • The death of the eagle itself. As one review puts it, "The film shows how we destroy [the Philippines'] national symbol through the extinction of the Philippine Eagle and through the extinction of societal truth and justice itself."
  • The mysterious imaginary(?) figure in red who occasionally follows Maya around can be interpreted as the spirit of the forest (or the spirit of the farmers) watching over her she explores the outside world on her own.
  • The final image of the pile of bodies under a pair of circling eagles, representing the corruption within the justice system slowly infecting the entire nation. The fact that the eagles essentially look like vultures certainly adds to the imagery.
• Scenery Porn: Used deliberately to support the theme of the story. The film uses plenty of shots of the gorgeous Philippine mountains and forests, highlighting the beauty of a country that's sadly undermined by corruption.
• Very Loosely Based on a True Story: Mikhail Red based the story on an actual case in which a farmer from Bukidnon shot (and eventually ate) a Philippine eagle. In the film itself, Diego cooks the bird and serves it for dinner the night that Maya kills it, but only as a means of getting rid of the body.
• What You Are in the Dark: After the police threatens him and his family, Domingo tragically becomes a Dirty Cop just like his colleagues, and he ends up committing heinous acts like torturing Diego and shooting Maya's dog Bala in cold blood.