Nocturnes is an aesthetic treat as well as informative introduction to the world of hawk moth field research (Film review)

  

Hong Kong International Film Festival 

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Nocturnes (India-U.S.A., 2024)

- Anirban Dutta and Anupama Srinivasan, co-directors

- Part of the Hong Kong International Film Festival's Reality Bites program

 

A few days before this year's Hong Kong International Film Festival got going, a friend and I were telling each other about which offerings we had got tickets for.  Upon doing so, he casually remarked that he was surprised that, given my love of critter spottings (including of butterflies and moths) while out hiking in Hong Kong, I didn't have Anirban Dutta and Anupama Srinivisan's Nocturnes on my list. 

After he did that, I went and checked out the synopsis for it in the HKIFF program booklet -- and determined that this documentary about research conducted in the forest of the Eastern Himalayas into the hawk moth of Arunachal Pradesh did indeed sound right up my alley.  At the same time, I still was very pleasantly surprised that Nocturnes turned out to be such an aesthetic treat even while also imparting information on such as the size and look of the hawk moth, the elevations at which it can be found, and how climate change can and will affect the life of the species. 

Mansi Mungee is an ecologist whom the filmmakers at a "food joint" in the Himalayas, where they had gone to make a film on snow leopard habitats.  When she told them about how her research involved going at night to set up moth screens on which hundreds, even thousands, of insects are attracted to when light is shone on it, they decided to capture this nocturnal scenes and enterprise on film (with the help of cinematographer Satya Rai Nagpaul).  And also install multiple mics to record not only the conversation of Mansi and her assistants (all of them indigenous individuals local to the area -- the chief of whom is Bicki, from the Bugun community) as they meticulously and patiently carry out their rigorous work but also the sounds of the forest that include the flapping of the wings of the moths and other insects in the film.

This results in Nocturne being an impressively immersive and textured work that encourages and rewards those viewers happy to look and listen at what nature is willing to reveal. At the same time, I think the documentary also gets its viewers appreciating and enjoying the dedication and passion of the chief human in the picture, and feel privileged to be privy to the academic discussions Mansi has with her mentor (Ramana Athrey) as well as the bonding and humanising chats she has with her obliging assistants.  

 

On a lingustic note: Hindi and Bugun is spoken in the film but the documentary's primary language is English.  Much of Nocturnes is dialogue-less though.  And while this might bother some people unused to this -- and get them feeling that time drags as a result -- there are others who will feel that it makes for a meditative viewing experience that actually works out to both relaxing and stimulating -- and generally very satisfying indeed.  So much so, in fact, that I think I would have been happy for this 82 minute length work to have had a running time that was closer to 100 minutes! :)

My rating for this film: 8.0

Taking time for self-care and further reflections about what Hong Kongers want

The closest thing I've seen to a rainbow in recent days

Or maybe it'd be this (Yes, there still are Lennon Walls about

in Hong Kong -- but mainly on the walls of private establishments)

Hot on the heels of the one year anniversaries of the 1 million persons anti-China extradition march of June 9th, a day that will go into infamy in Hong Kong (and which got me mulling the beginning of the end of the Hong Kong I love), and the death of Marco Leung came that for a massive 2 million (and one) protest march against the extradition bill that, if Hong Kong had a democracy, really should have made it game over for Carrie Lam and co.  But even while the most unpopular Hong Kong Chief Executive by far did withdraw that hated bill last October, the other four demands that the majority of Hong Kongers have been making for a year now remain unfulfilled.    

Worse, one year on, Hong Kong is feeling more and more like a police state, with so many freedoms being eroded even before the enactment of the security legislation the Chinese Communist regime seems utterly determined to impose on this rebellious territory whose people's hearts and minds it surely knows that it has lost.  To be sure, people still have more freedoms in Hong Kong than in Mainland China itself.  But you can't say a place feels free when, for two weeks in a row, a menacing convoy of police vehicles, including a water cannon truck and an armored truck, gets parked outside a public park, ready to roll into what is normally a busy shopping and dining district.  

Having spent quite a bit of time out on Monday, I decided to stay in for much of Tuesday -- and, consequently, missed not only the sight of that convoy of police vehicles but, also, at least one rainbow -- and in some cases two! -- viewable from various points in Hong Kong.  And as it so happened, the most eyecatching news reported that day actually occured thousands of miles away from Hong Kong -- along another section of the Chinese border, involving a clash between Chinese and Indian troops, involving rocks and clubs(!), that left at least 20 people dead on one side alone!  (Oh, and the North Koreans blew up a liason office -- can you imagine what would happen if this occured to the Liason Office in Hong Kong?!)  

I did venture out again yesterday though.  Among other things, I decided to practice self-care by treating myself to a viewing of a Hong Kong movie I had wanted to see for months (but couldn't for weeks because of the cinemas having been closed because of the Wuhan coronavirus).  Ray Yeung's beautifully understated Suk Suk made for an involving watch.  

But while it is a very good film, its viewing did leave me feeling rather sad.  Watching a Hong Kong film in these troubled times, I guess it's inevitable that one will see personal meaning in it.  In this case, there's a moment in the movie when the lead character (sensitively played by Tai Bo) talks about how he's done well for himself since escaping from Mainland China during the Cultural Revolution to Hong Kong.  He has a family, a home, enough money.  What more should he want?

Well, in his case, it would be the freedom to live the way he really wants, and openly -- since he's a gay man who's been so closeted all his life that he got himself married with children and one grandchild (on whom he dotes).  And, really, that's what a lot of Hong Kongers want: to be able to have the freedom to live the way they really want, to not have to pretend to be someone/something else that they really don't feel that they actually are (even if other people think that's the case), to love who and what they want (without being told it's wrong).  To feel free, you know, to sing the songs they like and not the ones they don't.  To feel happy and safe in their home.  Rainbow or not, what a wonderful world it then would be.

Crossing the River Indus and hiking along Hong Kong's "Great Wall"!

Click on the above image to enlarge it and better see a Hong Kong road 

likened to the Great Wall of China and a Hong Kong waterway 

known as the River Indus as well as Ng Tung River! :O 

Looking north to the skyscrapers of Shenzhen

 

 Another enlargeable- via-clicking-on-it view panorama :)

Earlier today, I went on a hike that involved crossing the River Indus and then walking up hill and down dale in a border area along an old military road that has been likened to the Great Wall of China.  And before anything else: no, this is not an April Fool's joke (despite my indeed blogging on April 1st)!

 

At the turn of the 20th century, a British Army Royal Engineers team were assigned to map Hong Kong's New Territories.  Rather fancifully but not very creatively, it proceeded to bestow names like the Chilterns, Cotswolds and South Downs to mountain ranges and highlands in the Big Lychee that bore some physical resemblance to the originally named locations in England, and designations like the Indus, Ganges and Beas to waterways that are nowhere as large and wide as the Indian rivers that bore those names.

 

And while it does require a bit of imagination to see the old Wa Shan Military Road as the Great Wall of China, I reckon that it does resemble that monumental barrier in terms of its location atop a hilly range and consequent undulation.  At the very least, this particular area landmark surely is more deserving of the comparison than Cheung Chau's actually rather pathetic Mini Great Wall which I think that even the Mount Parker Road structure I have laughingly labelled the not-so-great wall of Hong Kong looks better than! 

 

Even if you don't think its fanciful nickname is deserved, you undoubtedly would consider a trek along Hong Kong's Great Wall to be well worth the effort when you behold the views to be held from it, especially on a beautiful, high visibility day like today was.  While walking on this northern New Territories trail that takes one up and then down 115-meter-high Cham Shan, 139-meter-high Wa Shan, 169-meter-high High Hill and 135-meter-high Lamb Hill (Ma Tau Leng) as well as the side of 115-meter-high Tsung Chan, one gets to see much of the surrounding Hong Kong countryside but also clear across the Sham Chun River over into mainland China.   

 

In addition to scenic views of green Hong Kong hills and tall Shenzhen skyscrapers, one also gets treated to unusual sights such as a People's Liberation Army firing range, a stele atop Wa Shan that dates back to the reign of the Qing Dynasty's Emperor Daoguang Emperor along with sprawling container yards that have turned formerly green pockets of rural land into brownfield sites.  Last but not certainly not least are what appears to be guaranteed critter spottings that, this afternoon, included a long-tailed, color-changing lizard and colorful butterflies, dragonflies and damselflies. :b

France's Tomorrow is the rare ecological documentary that holds out hope for the future (film review)

Let's do our bit to help save the planet!

Tomorrow (France, 2015)

- Cyril Dion, director-writer, and Melanie Laurent, co-director 

Climate change is real.  And the climate change the world is currently experiencing is human-made.   The likes of Donald Trump may continue to deny this but it's my belief that most sane and intelligent people accept this as a matter of course these days; especially if they live in places like Hong Kong, which definitely has been feeling the effects of it in terms of record low winter temperatures, record high summer temperatures and such being documented in recent years. 

So rather than argue about whether climate change is indeed taking place, it's high time that we look for ways to combat it -- and spread the news and practice of the ways in which various people around the world are attempting to make the world a better place ecologically (and, often in the process, socio economically and -politically too).  That, essentially, is the message and focus of Cyril Dion and Melanie Laurent's César-award-winning Tomorrow (known as Demain in the filmmakers' native French).  

A documentary made by people who wear their heart on their sleeves and actively seek to inspire, Tomorrow came about after its makers learnt of an announcement by Stanford University biologist Elizabeth Hadly and University of California-Berkeley paleontologist Anthony Barnosky in international scientific journal Nature regarding rising temperatures and population increases leading to the possible extinction of much of humankind before the end of this century.  Rather than sink into despair and paralysis, Dion, Laurent and their friends decided to mount an investigation to figure out what factors and actions would lead to this outcome, and how it can be stalled, even outright avoided.  And being the film folks that they are, they went on to make a film about this.

Wide-ranging and globe-trotting, their Tomorrow looks at the actions that certain individuals and communities in ten different countries (only one of which is in Asia) have undertaken that, taken by themselves, may seem small and not particularly powerful, yet have already had a surprisingly strong impact on their (part of the) world.  Among the various people and organizations pointed out as exemplars are: a former lawyer and her ex-sailor spouse turned organic farmers who combined practices they learnt in Cuba, Japan, the USA and France itself to make their small piece of land in Normandy produce incredible abundance; and a company that's played a big part in San Francisco currently being able to redirect 80% of its buried waste towards recycling, re-using and composting, and the city having a stated goal of being able to recycle 100% of waste by 2020.

Admittedly, Tomorrow can get overly "new age-y" at times; with a musical score that's so determinedly upbeat that it can inadvertently grate, and the showcasing of a Finnish elementary school that might seem enlightened and empowering to those who buy into its ultra-liberal philosophy but chaotic and crazy to more conservative others.  (I'm also not quite sure how the particular form of teaching and learning methods espoused can help us combat climate change.) 

More seriously: I must admit to feeling somewhat uncomfortable by the preponderance of Caucasians in the picture; this especially since the avowedly "feel good" documentary's team does look to have gone out of its way to not stay within the Francophone part of the world.  To be sure, it was good to have the film include coverage of black as well as white urban farmers making use of vacant plots of land in inner city Detroit to grow healthy food for the local populace, and an Indian village whose former mayor has succeeded in getting members of different castes to work and also live together.  I just wanted to have more representation from beyond the West -- particularly the white West -- in what is, after all, a film infused with humanistic ideals.

These quibbles aside, the crux of the matter is that Tomorrow succeeds in spades in showing that cool and wonderful solutions really are out there, and being enacted by certain individuals and communities.  Among the most inspirational for me was the French envelope producing company whose CEO (Emmanuel Druon) has not only succeeded in making his company more productive even while greener, but also does good by his employees along with the environment.  

Then there's what's shown taking place in the English town of Totnes, with its complementary local currency, growing of plants in seemingly every nook and cranny of spare public space, and other innovative methods conjured up to deal with issues of peak oil along with climactic changes.  Perhaps the greatest compliment I could make about all this is that it made me almost want to move there -- or, at least, sincerely wish that so much of what's been done in that corner of Devon could be implemented here in the Big Lychee!        

My rating for this film: 8.0