BIRDS COME TO DIE IN PERU

France, 1968, 95 minutes, Colour.
Jean Seberg, Maurice Ronet, Pierre Brasseur, Danielle Darrieux.
Directed by Romain Gary.

Birds Come to Die in Peru is a strange film – not always audience-friendly. It even has a reputation as the first film to receive an X certificate from the American MPAAA Classification Board which was established in1968.

The film was written and directed by Romain Gary from his own novel. At this period of his life he was married to Jean Seberg who is the star of the film. (Gary was to commit suicide two years later and Jean Seberg to die of a barbiturate overdose eleven years later.)

Gary was interested in making a very French film, utilising the screen presence and talent of his wife. After her appearance as Joan of Arc in Saint Joan for Otto Preminger, for which she received very strong criticism, she went to France and appeared in a number of French films, especially Jean-Luc? Godard’s Breathless. The film focuses on women, relationships, men using women as objects, men of prey – and the way that women react. The tone of the film is grim, even pessimistic.

The film has a very good French supporting cast including classic actors, Pierre Brasseur and Danielle Darrieux (who began her career in the 1930s and was still making films at the beginning of the 21st century). An odd film with interesting credentials.

1. The impact of this film? As a piece of popular entertainment? As a critical success or failure?

2. The importance of Romain Gary writing the film, directing it, using his wife, Jean Seberg in the main role? Was it, as was said, too much a family home movie? Did it seem pretentious? Critics said that Gary must have been the equivalent of the husband in this film. Is this a just comment in the use of Jean Seberg? Did it alter audience response to the film?

3. How could the film be seen as a parable and a fable, the symbolism of Peru, the birds, their death? How symbolic was the film overall? The relationship of symbol and theme? Audience capacity to respond to these values?

4. The importance of the use of colour the Peruvian beach, the carnival atmosphere, the brothel, the house? The characters fitting into this kind of setting? The sunlight, the atmosphere of the sea etc.?

5. The use of the beach for the major settings? The symbolism of, water, the birds - both dead and alive, the sea and the waves, the beach and its sand, the cliffs? The contrast with the houses and the car and the formalism of
the chauffeur compared with the beach and the open naturalness of it?

6. The contribution of the music, the varying, carnival themes and the themes for Adriana?

7. The film's focus almost exclusively on Adriana? Jean Seberg’s contribution to this role in terms of appearance, personality and character? The first scene of her lying naked on the beach, like a dead bird? The birds around her? How did the symbolism of the bird fit her? Why did she come to Peru? Her illness and death? The problems of her identity, her memories of her husband, the chauffeur? The identity in terms of sexuality and nymphomania? A woman who was lost? how did the birds correspond to her? Her dress and its visual impression of bird-like character?

8. The importance of the husband and the contrast? A cruel and older kind of man? His sadism and his hold over her? Cruelty? Associated with the car and the chauffeur? His pursuit? How evil a character and an exploiter?

9. The role of the revellers and their attitudes? Their treatment of Adriana? The sexual emphases? Their abandoning her? What did she want of them? Was she satisfied?

10. What was Adriana left with on the morning at the beach? Her fears, death, illness?

11. What did she hope for from going to the brothel? The character of Madame Fernand? Her hold over Adriana? The latent lesbian theme? The atmosphere of the brothel and the people there? Adriana’s fear, her being in two minds, the purity, the lust? Being driven to death by this experience?

12. Was Ranier in any way a saviour figure? As a character, man, failure? how well did he rescue Adriana? Sexual fulfilment? Love? The fact that he became the substitute chauffeur? Was his death ultimately inevitable?

13. The melodrama of the death of the chauffeur? The boy and the transition to Ranier? An appropriate melodramatic conclusion for the film?

14. The boy and the atmosphere of realism in the killing of the chauffeur, the symbolism of the boy and his running Into the sea?

15. What was the major point underlying the fable? Identity, sexuality and Its effect on others, illness and death?