Critics reviews

The impressionistic results succeed in conveying widespread social problems on a relatable scale, as the subjects register throughout as complex individuals. But when the filmmakers step back in the final sequences to consider the magnitude of poverty in Pakistan, the situation seems even more devastating than it did at the outset.

[The film] finds beauty not in poverty but in glimpses and gestures that transcend it. "What's up with your running?" Asad asks the silent Omar, but no explanation is necessary.

The filmmakers capture extraordinary adventure on the wing, as when they enter Taliban territory to bring Omar home; along the way, the boy visits a shrine against Asad's wishes, resulting in one of the most exciting and daringly filmed chase scenes in the recent cinema.

The film wears its imperfections lightly and earns its moments of lyrical transcendence. Ultimately, one walks away from These Birds Walk with a renewed confidence that, when combined with an independent sense of aesthetics and form, and a searching need to describe the actual world in the key of poetry, the humanitarian spirit can move one to make great art.

Keeping up with these rootless street kids is strenuous, and often pays dividends that are less inspirational than bleakly eye-opening, but These Birds Walk applies an admirable focus to its chosen task, immersing us fully within their difficult lives.

Through Asad's rounds and Omar's story — his family awaits in desolate Taliban territory — the filmmakers record the flash of youth's headlong energies, its bumps and bruises, and its melancholies and brilliant chaos.

Transitional care facilities are all the rage this cinematic season. Following Destin Cretton's sensational Short Term 12, Omar Mullick and Bassam Tariq's These Birds Walk showcases another such supportive environment, and is a touching portrait of youthful resilience and displacement set amid the drab backdrop of war-ravaged Karachi, Pakistan.

[The reunions] offer a brief, striking glimpse into the situations that make such a organization necessary.

Mullick and Tariq use a wide range of cinematic techniques to convey the tenuous environment in which their subjects find themselves... But far from being just shallow gambits to make the film seem spuriously "cinematic," such visual tropes serve to highlight a sense of rootless dislocation among runaways like Omar, one borne out of a profound lack of a sense of "home."