It
is empowering for young girls to learn how to shoot and hunt, like Aisholpan,
the Eagle Huntress. Maya’s father Diego
should have just spent a little more time on the rules of the road. When she
unknowingly bullseyes an endangered Philippine “monkey-eating” eagle, they
become a convenient distraction from a politically-charged mass murder in
Mikhail Red’s Birdshot (trailer here), which screens
during the 2017 New York Asian Film Festival.
Conscious
of his advanced years, Diego is training his daughter Maya to be
self-sufficient. Unfortunately, she took too much initiative venturing over to
the wilderness preserve. When he sees her game, Diego immediately understands
the potential trouble. He does his best to dispose of the evidence, but as the
only home within miles of the preserve, it is inevitable the police will come
calling.
Initially,
veteran officer Mendoza and his idealistic rookie partner Domingo were working
a different, more pressing case. An entire bus loaded with passengers
disappeared on route to Manila. They found the bus, but not the people.
However, it turns out a number of the presumed victims were a party to a land
rights case pending against a major plantation. Just as they start to make some
headway, they are yanked from the case and assigned the ornithocide. Hey, any
Green voter would agree one dead bird is way more important than a dozen or so murdered
people.
Red’s
set-up is highly compelling, but his execution is more than heavy-handed.
Slowly but surely, Domingo becomes exactly the sort of monster he once held in
contempt (a process that takes less than a week, as Mendoza wryly observes) and
Diego is sacrificed on a cross of eagle feathers in a third act that feels more
like a class-conscious passion play than a climax to a gritty thriller.
Still,
Mary Joy Apostol is absolutely mesmerizing as the semi-wild Maya. She is
naturally intense and totally unaffected. She also works well with dogs (the
remarkably well-trained Mala) and Ku Aquino, whose turn as Diego is quiet and
reserved, but acutely powerful. John Arcilla does his thing as the
corrupt-in-a-give-a-toss-sort-of-way Mendoza, much as he did in Metro Manila, but with less flair. Arnold
Reyes is sufficiently tightly wound as Domingo, but his accelerated arc of
disillusionment makes things a bit too pat.
