When a bird scares from you, you can feel the uneasiness... the fear surround its body and sound to protect itself. This movie is all about an unrest soul which has doubt about its identity. You may watch a lot of movie about self-discovering but this is a masterpiece. I am not only talking about the script or dialogue but the way that director shows contrast is clever. The one shot technique helps to bring all the dilemma and confusion with great acting but also I love how he exposes the audience by bringing them into the scene by leading actor's great look.

This movie can explain you how a gay struggling in a racist army. However while world moves apart you can only find the creation of a new world surrounded by beautiful songs, Canary's song.

The only problem with this movie is that the English subtitles will never do justice to the expressive dialogue in the Afrikaans language and the culture of the Afrikaans dominated defense force of the time. A rare insight into the internal dilemma of a young man, from a small town with big city ideas, forced into a situation (conscription to the armed forces) and finding that he is not alone.

As a gay guy who, naturally, had problems of self acceptance in my teen years, this emotionally devastated me. And made me realize just how much growing up gay in a society of heterosexual hegemony can ruin one's self esteem, build up emotional baggage. It's an experience heterosexuals can't really understand, at least not white people. Luckily things are better now, it was still hard for me as a millenial but probably nowhere near as hard as it was for someone in the 80s. This was a really good movie. The main character was written so very well, in fact i'd go so far as to say this was a character study and a damn good one. Thank you to the writer and director for this movie and thank you for making me literally s**cidal.