User Reviews

"Birds Come To Die In Peru" is a pseudo-bold movie about a frigid nymphomaniac (as Pauline Kael so accurately puts it) which, however, skirts around both issues in a we're-not-allowed-to-say-the-words way that is actually quite timid for a 1968 movie; in other words, don't get too eXcited about the X rating the film originally received, it is barely PG-13 worthy (and although Jean Seberg receives many loving close-ups from her husband-director, she doesn't show anything below shoulder-level). Endless shots of birds flying no doubt symbolize something - most likely the film's lack of budget. The chauffer is probably the most intriguing character. *1/2 out of 4.

Romain Gary directed this very obscure film version of his own short story and cast his then-wife Jean Seberg in the lead. It's a grueling experience. Seberg, looking stunning, is a nymphomaniac wandering a beach in Peru after a night of unhinged debauchery with multiple sex partners. She's pursued by wealthy husband Pierre Brasseur and his creepy chauffeur (nasty looking Jean-Pierre Kalfon) and finds refuge in a whorehouse run by an overly friendly madam (Danielle Darrieux!) as well as with disillusioned artist Maurice Ronet. It's all impossibly enigmatic, symbolic laden to say the least (note the always stalking vulture) and, unfortunately, never particularly compelling or entertaining. The music score by Kenton Coe is an asset, but there's very little else to recommend in this hard-to-find film.

As dawn breaks, vacationing nymphomaniac Adriana (Jean Seberg) is having sex on the beach with a quartet of men she met the night before while her husband (Pierre Brasseur) and his chauffeur cruise the coast looking for her. After the foursome amble off, Adriana has sex with a mute beachboy before making her way to a seaside bordello where she has sex with its lesbian madame (Danielle Darrieux) and one of the customers. Afterwards, Adriana walks into the sea but gets rescued by an ex-pat poet (Maurice Ronet) and they have meaningful sex (for at least one of them, anyway) while her husband and his driver begin combing the beach where it's revealed they've had enough of her antics and plan to kill her. Adriana knows this and is almost ready...

(and contrary to another review on this site, Adriana doesn't drown herself)

Although novice director Romain Gary claimed this adaptation of his own short story was influenced by Joseph Conrad, it positively reeks of Tennessee Williams at his most operatically perverse, right down to the hoary allegory of birds coming to die on the beaches of Peru. The story, akin to a Greek tragedy that unfolds over the course of a day, is as compelling as it is preposterous and its realization is both pretentious and hypnotic. I'm not sure how much of the black comedy was intentional but Gary definitely knew what he wanted from his leading lady (then-wife Jean Seberg) and got it despite the NY Times' assertion that "she doesn't resemble a woman lost to an empty passion as much as a little girl about to lose a spelling bee." Told by everyone she's got the devil in her, Seberg's Adriana is the quintessential femme fatale and the film, as Variety noted, "is reminiscent of early Hollywood films about (them)". The ethereally beautiful Jean has a nude scene (albeit covered in sand) and has sex with almost everyone in the movie but it's the "adult subject matter" that earned THE BIRDS COME TO DIE IN PERU the first "X" rating in the U.S. The stylized showdown's satisfyingly sadistic and oh, what the heck: 10/10!

"In Paris, BIRDS IN PERU has been damned as the worst film ever made and praised as an outstanding work of art." -Jean Seberg

"It is, in fact, a daring and accomplished work and I'd find it difficult to name another writer who has changed media so effectively in a first try." -Films And Filming

"BIRDS IN PERU is about as self-indulgent as a movie can get...(it) has most of the defects of a very bad home movie: it is unintentionally funny where it is not flat...The scenes are not remotely erotic." -Time

"BIRDS IN PERU is the kind of movie I find infinitely more entertaining than overrated limburger like THE LION IN WINTER...(it's) blessed with an authentic personal signature." -Village Voice

Without competition, this is the worst movie I have ever seen. A complete waste of good film. Some bad movies are worth seeing. Not this one. At the end -- when she drowns herself -- you wish YOU were the one drowning. Without a doubt, the experience would be an improvement over watching this movie.

I haven't seen this movie in thirty years, but it still causes me nightmares -- nightmares that someone might make me see it again. I can't say enough bad things about it. It's almost like watching a zombie movie -- without any zombies. Everyone walks around not knowing where to go, what to do or what to say. The only relief is when the movie ends, but you end up feeling the same way. Maybe that was the point.