MICROCOSMOS
**** out of *****

Genres
Documentary

1996
Directed by
Claude Nuridsany
Marie Pérennou
Written by
Claude Nuridsany
Marie Pérennou
Narrated by
Jacques Perrin (French)
Kristin Scott Thomas (English)

Microcosmos, directed by Claude Nuridsany and Marie Pérennou is not your typical nature film. With the exception of a brief introduction and epilogue, there is no narration in the entire film. There's no authoritative voice of an expert to explain what's going on to the audience and none of the creatures are named. Further, the subject of this film isn't lions on the veldt, or penguins in the Antarctic. There are no exotic vistas to marvel at here.

Rather, the focus is on something smaller. Insects in a meadow. For some people this automatically brings with it an “ick” factor. I must admit that at some stages of the film I had the creepy-crawlies myself, but stick with the film, it is worth it.

There is a difficulty in reviewing a film that has no plot, but I shall start with the technical aspects. The film is structured around a day in the life of a French meadow – however, if the DVD box is to be relied on, it took fifteen years of research, two years of equipment design and three years of filming to produce. The cinematography is amazing. The camera is taken into anthills, or under the pond water – right into the insects' world. They are oblivious to the camera's presence. Nothing crawls on the lens and we don't see them reacting to any disturbance from a cameraman or a film crew. To borrow an old joke from The Young Ones, it's a fly on the wall documentary.

So what do we see? The film is structured around the four most important aspects of life: birth, eating, sex and death. We see industrious ants farming aphids and fending off ladybugs. We see what mayflies do when they're not busy advertising Vodafone. We see two beetles in a fight to the death. Curiously enough, they bow towards each other in a strangely formal way like two samurai warriors (perhaps sumo wrestlers would be a better description given their bulk). We see a train of caterpillars playing follow the leader. Watching spiders viciously stun their prey and wrap them in silk is quite a thrill in itself. It's very hard to watch “Microcosmos” and not give the insects human characteristics – particularly when they preen themselves before starting the day. Perhaps this is what the director intended. We are shown that as humans we are not entirely unique in our behaviour. We find that we share many of our needs and desires with the simplest of creatures.

Accompanied by a pleasant but not really remarkable soundtrack, Microcosmos can be enjoyed by adults and the variety of children who have an interest in bugs. The only problem I have with it – and it's one that brings my rating down from five stars to four – is that the film is a little too subtle. If it was much longer than its 77 minutes, it would threaten to bore you. However, while it lacks a story, it rewards close attention and will fill you with a sense of wonder at the diversity of life that exists not only in a field, but the world at large.

Snail porn. Hot.

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