The action takes place inside the deep rainforest of the Eastern Himalayas, a place covered with lush green, seemingly impenetrable treetops, gently enveloped in fog and low-hanging clouds. The word “action” may sound inappropriate to describe a slow, poetic and observational documentary about moths. Such isn’t the case. This is a film bursting with life and movement. Micro-movement eve. You just have to be in a very relaxed (and yet aware) state of mind in order to follow the subtle developments and appreciate the beauty of this filmic creation. Otherwise what’s intended to be an enrapturing experience becomes conducive to sleep. Dark and foggy images of the jungle combined with the soothing sound of insects chirping, buzzing and droning may lead you to the arms of Morpheus.
Humans too make noise here. They pray. Their humming blends harmoniously with the noises emitted by our extremely distant, invertebrate relatives. An exquisite symphony of man and nature, and a strange combination of science and faith. It is this quiet and meditative tone that dominates the 82 minutes of this non-narrative documentary. Our protagonists are Mansi and Bicki, two female preservationists passionately devoted to documenting the life of moths. A task not particularly easy and straightforward. There are 150,000 species of such animals, and many of them live no more than a couple of days. Some are smaller than your little finger, some are bigger than your hand. They mostly come out mostly at night, and are attracted by light – be that the moonlight or manmade floodlight illuminating a large sheet hanging a line and poles. This extremely simple set-up enables Mansi, Bicki and other enthusiasts to watch the insects from very close, the intense gleaming allowing the entomologists to see through their bodies. They never kill and dissect their subjects.
The filmmakers Anirban Dutta and Anupama Srinivasan observe the observers from a respectful distance. There are no close-ups of the preservationists, and no extreme close-ups of the wasps.
This isn’t a particularly educational film, with the emphasis on the languid, resilient and patient nature of the scientific work. There is some occasional and valuable insight into the life of these creatures: they have been on earth for 300 million years, longer than dinosaurs and flowering plants, they become bigger in the colder regions of high altitude, amongst other Darwinian snippets of information. We also come face-to-face with the skull drawn on the back of Death’s Head Hawk-Moth, an image you will recognise from story and the posters of The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991).
Fluttering wings and a vast spectrum of micro-colours vouch for the visual magnificence of this documentary. This is a nature show in its full splendour. The plain white cloth becomes a miniature city, a diorama of the forest. Its inhabitants are more diverse than the most diverse of human societies. They do come in all colours, shapes and forms. It is never clear, however, whether they are social animals (like human beings) or lone creatures who barely relate to individuals around them (like film journalists). One way or another, they are beautiful to watch. This is a delightful doc if you’re in the right mood. Just not a deal-breaker.
Nocturnes showed in the Mare Nostrum section of the 2nd Mediterrane Film Festival, in Malta, when this piece was originally written. The movie premiered earlier this year in Sundance. In selected cinemas on Friday, December 6th.
