‘Nocturnes’ Review: A Hypnotic Documentary About Moths Unfolds to Reveal Climate Change Concerns As Well
15.03.2024 - 13:41
/ variety.com
Siddhant Adlakha The nature documentary is inherently preservationist, but Anirban Dutta and Anupama Srinivasan’s “Nocturnes” offers environmental persuasions not through verbal arguments, or even an aesthetic appreciation. Rather, its meditative, hyper-fixated approach to process — as seen through the eyes of seasoned lepidopterists — proves so hypnotic that any appeals or augments the movie makes are deeply felt before they’re intellectually understood.
The pieces snap into place eventually (which is to say, the “why” of studying moths and their patterns), but the “how” is foregrounded so forcefully and poetically throughout that viewers will likely come to care about these creatures, and this field of study, well before they understand the very real and pressing reasons they should. In northeastern India, bordering Bhutan, scientist Mansi and her indigenous assistant Bicki (belonging to the local Bugun tribe) partake in the nightly ritual of suspending a cloth sheet and illuminating it with bright lights in the middle of the forest.
Slowly, but surely, hundreds of moths flock to this makeshift station, resting along the sheet’s checkered grid pattern so Mansi can observe, photograph, and eventually measure them. Between her frequent voiceover and her instructions to Bicki, the audience learns a great deal about Mansi’s practice.
We even meet an elderly man who appears to be her mentor, hinting at the depth of this scientific tradition, though there’s something intentionally stilted about her delivery. Mansi is not an actor, after all, but she’s given the role of one, both in her narrations, as well as in some of these interpersonal conversations.
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