Common Birds

4th century BC, Aristophanes wrote the comedy Ornithes, in which two men leave their birthplace in search of a better life. Maglioni and Thomson give the play a remarkable update. Combining a contemporary Athens marked by crisis and the ancestral forest of La Gomera, they alternate between Ancient Greek and Silbo Gomero. The latter is a nearly extinct whistled language that forms part of a long tradition of resistance. Half documentary, half fantasy, this deadpan tale of two friends who opt for a life as outcasts evokes both the recent social history of Greece as well as another, timeless realm. Taking their inspiration from Pasolini as much as from Straub & Huillet, the filmmakers daringly shift from grey to colour, from a gritty realism to poetic mysticism, in order to contrast the economic climate with the ecological. In a deceptively simple, yet inventive form, Maglioni and Thomson explore the boundaries of voice and language, while articulating an uncompromising criticism of capitalism and power relations. (International Film Festival Rotterdam)