"Marco Bechis' Birdwatchers is a ground-level drama involving a Guarani tribe that packs up one day, leaves "its" federal land, and builds shelters of tree limbs and plastic sheets on farmland that once was the tribe's. This goes down badly with the farmer, who with his family lives in a spacious home with a pool and (Indian) servants. The film portrays the descendants of colonialists very broadly; its strength is in the directness of the performances by Indians. Their performances are informed by actual life experience, because Bechis shot on location with local non-actors. The situation is very different from the 1970s, when Herzog filmed "Aguirre, the Wrath of God". Now the forest a preserved facade shielding fields that have been stripped of trees and devoted to farming. If they want, the Indians can pile into a truck and hire out as day laborers. But all of their traditions center on the forest and its spirits, and this new life is alienating. The film strikes a chord as in real life the Brazilian government remains benevolent toward the destruction of the planet's richest home of life forms and crucial oxygen source. Indians have been stripped of ownership of their ancestral lands and assigned to reservations far from the remains of their parents. "Birdwatchers" is impressively filmed and has a familiar sermon: Save the rain forest. Respect its inhabitants."