Programme 4

This journey to polar dreams begins in the south of France, together with animals that are non-domestic but common in our landscapes and in our imagination, the protagonists of fairytales and fables for centuries, and with their own onomatopoeia (ribbit). Charming a frog pond is the dominion of children and of Rose Lowder, who ignites and extinguishes the sun at will and shows us how the water vibrates when in contact with the frogs: like a piano. It is all about, in this journey, seeing animals in their element and out in the open, with no more humans at close bay than those behind the cameras. Filming wild animals, that is, adapting to another’s freedom, requires patience and a good telephoto lens.

Farther north, in Central Europe, a forest and several woodpeckers: spotted woodpeckers, piculets, black woodpeckers, green woodpeckers. And too: nuthatch, jackdaw, starling, stock dove, kite. The forest is a grand wooden theatre where the birds put on a show and Heinz Sielmann invents tricks to introduce them without betraying them, ascending to where they ascend, opening little doors in the trees to be able to film their nests, creating new and exciting relations with the help of editing. Again we think of music, seeing those perforated trunks like flutes and the tatatatata that is leisure, work, morse code and an act of presence.

Farther north, on Stora Karlsö, a cliff, three colonies: razorbill, common guillemot, seagull. The seagulls are at the top, of the cliff and of the food chain, and they are the villain. Their villainy is imposed by cinema, because it adds suspense and makes us, by fearing for the life of all, take an interest in all, eggs, chicks and resigned or distracted parents. It also enlarges our perspective: when evil flies over other parts of the island, we see specimens of ringer plover, goosander, Arctic tern, oystercatcher, velvet scoter. And yes, the seagull eats embryos and newborn chicks but... there are so many! The superabundance of offspring triumphs over the predatory zeal, life continues. Among the rocks are the rest of the invertebrates left by the swell, choppy sea, millions of years ago.

And finally, to the north of the North, in Ellesmere, a glacier and a survivor of the last glacial period: the musk ox. Pierre Perrault called this landscape of no one “Cornouailles”, horns and battles. Bigheadedness. It is summer, there a time of spring. The snow melts, the tundra and the colours reappear and the oxen shed their hair. Each animal we meet is an occasion to meet the world, and Perrault edits together the loosening tufts of wool (they go with the wind), the cottongrass and the down that an eider tears from her chest to cushion her future chicks. They are the rhymes of the “woollen valley”. The calves play, they splash in the water. The herd breaks into a run for no apparent reason. How exciting to see an animal come out of itself after such a winter. But, some zoom outs remind us that the ice behind lies in wait and that the ox is in debt to its species. A background of enigmatic, courtly violence encourages the males to charge other males, thus winning the right to charge the females. Bigheadedness. It seems like a duel and its seems fair, being unforeseeable. Next summer their young will be born.