‘Pajaros’: Malaga Review

Dir: Pau Dura. Spain/Romania. 2023. 100mins

Two damaged 50-something men end up undertaking an expansive roadtrip through Spain to Romania in search of both redemption and themselves in Pau Dura’s third feature Pajaros. While the film has its flaws, committed and involving performances by two of Spain’s finest character actors – Javier Gutierrez and Luis Zahera – elevate this frankly tired premise into an engaging and energetic tragi-comic take on the multiple insecurities of masculinity in middle age.

An engaging and energetic tragi-comic take on the multiple insecurities of masculinity in middle age

A return for the director to Malaga’s official section after 2018’s Formentera Lady, Parjaros (’birds’) offers a road trip from Valencia to the crane migrations in Catalonia and on through the stunningly scenic backroads of the Slovenian Alps and Hungary to Romania – no less than eight different languages are spoken on screen, a factor which may help the film find audiences outside its natural Spanish marketplace.

Former musician Colombo (Javier Gutierrez), whose life seems to amount to a perpetual postponement of his responsibilities but who remains defiantly upbeat, is going through a costly separation. He is working in a vehicle repair shop in Valencia, supplementing his earnings by selling marijuana, when a battered truck rolls in, driven by clearly unwell lawyer Mario (Luis Zahera), a fanatical birdwatcher with a stutter. Clearly incapable of driving himself, Mario offers Colombo a fee to drive him to see some migrating cranes that, like our hapless heroes, have been blown off course. Initially suspicious, Colombo quickly realises that the cash will come in handy and off they go.

On arrival, Colombo has a brief, rejuvenating fling with Elisabetta (Teresa Saponangelo), an Italian enjoying her freedom after the death of her domineering husband: she treats our two heroes like the little boys they really still are. Mario asks Colombo to continue their journey to Romania: by this time, the viewer is aware that Mario’s story involves an old lover and a road accident but, not being a man of words, he takes his time to reveal all.

The rest of the film charts the pair’s epic drive and nervy, comic mishaps with the law, since the vehicle contains marijuana and money that Mario is carrying with him. Interspersed are scenes of tenderness, drunkenness, joy and laughter as they are allowed to temporarily forget the woes that beset them.

As befits a road movie, the randomness of their experiences comes across loud and clear. But there is the nagging sense that the script is struggling to squeeze all the countries in – excessive screen time is devoted to one comic scene in Hungary that feels like merely an overstretched joke about the famed rivalry between the Barcelona and Real Madrid football teams.

By this time, however, the viewer is fully invested in the characters driving this offbeat throwback to Thelma And Louise. Colombo and Mario are quite the double act, the former compact and buzzing with physical energy, the latter long, languid and likely to fall asleep at any time. Nobody plays the macho, insecure Spaniard better than Javier Gutierrez, and his role here gives him full rein: he persuades us that a man who repeatedly forgets his son’s birthday can also be one of the good guys. 

By contrast, Zahera, most familiar to non-Spanish viewers for his memorably twisted turn in The Beasts, plays against his bad guy stereotype – though it takes the viewer longer to fall for him, as the script stays tight-lipped on his tragic backstory. It becomes clear that, despite Mario’s life having been blighted by tragedy, there is a redemptive romantic heart still beating strongly inside him; as the character is unable to communicate fluently, Zahera’s nuanced facial expressions work well to get all this across. There is a lovely balance, too, in the fact that while Colombo is again running away from his issues, Mario is seeking to run towards salvation.

The dialogue sometimes makes heavy weather of the symbolism of the ‘birds’ of the title. But it remains a rich motif, one underpinned by a sombre message about the plight of Colombo and Mario in a fast-changing world. As one character points out, birds have no home, and Pajaros is ultimately about how these two perpetual dreamers, their lives more than half over, have yet to find their true place in the world.