After a look at some strange creatures, the narrator and camera take us to the Chaco forest, on the borders of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil, where a vampire bat lives, desmodus rotondus, attacking wildlife and domesticated creatures, killing small ones by draining all their blood and killing...
Shot primarily by twelve French cameramen (led by filmmakers Jean Painlevé and Jean Grémillon), in August 1944, this film captures the final French insurrection in German-occupied Paris, the surrender of the Germans, and the mass celebration in the streets. (There is an English-language version...
An early example of ultra-realism, this movie contrasts the quiet, bucolic life in the outskirts of Paris with the harsh, gory conditions inside the nearby slaughterhouses. Describes the fate of the animals and that of the workers in graphic detail.
Titles in French and English help us know what we're seeing. In all waters, daphnia abound. They are crustaceans about 2 ml long, with one eye that turns in all directions. Antennae enable daphnia to move: in a close up magnified 150,000 times, we see the muscles of the antennae pulse. We see the...
Underwater photography, magnified close-ups, and film through microscope present the sea urchin, a complex creature. We see their mouth and five teeth close and open. After injecting one with gelatin, the shell is removed and we see the muscle structure, digestive tube, and reproductive organs....
Perrault's fairy tale presented in claymation with choral voices. Bluebeard goes courting, all six of his wives having died. He arrives at the house of a widow with two daughters. He's greatly feared, but he overcomes objections with a generous dowry. One sister (Anne) refuses him; the other...
In close-ups and extreme close-ups, we watch two small species of marine crustaceans, the slender long-legged stenorhynchus and the clumsy, short-legged hyas. To blend in, both cover themselves with found objects, such as algae and sponges. We watch them move, eat, greet each other, and fight. They...
An octopus slithers over objects on land—a doll, a skull—then oozes along the shore into the sea. It secretes its ink. The camera follows it along rocks into deeper water, watching closely as it breathes. Its eye is closed then open. Simple titles, in French and German, suggest what to watch....
The film begins with methodical descriptions of one-dimensional, two-dimensional, and three-dimensional space. It then looks at a two-dimensional world inhabited by flat mice. It imagines how a human, from the third dimension could interact with that world. It then suggests how beings from a fourth...
An enthusiastic grandfather sits with children in a Parisian park talking about pigeons. First. their physical appearance—eye, wings and tail, and color—and their varieties. Then, he encourages the children to imitate their walk. He points out courtship and mating rituals, then provides an...
We begin on planet Earth, with a demonstration of measuring distances using triangulation. Then, an imaginary voyage begins from earth to the moon, on to Mars, Saturn, the closest star (besides the sun), and beyond to the edge of our universe. The film depicts imagined landscapes, and it speculates...
Two kinds of starfish, the brittle and the feather. The brittle star moves its arms alone, without the aid of suckers. Underneath is a single opening. Stalks move food close to the mouth and move waste away. We see vents, used in reproduction and breathing. We watch the hatched young expelled into...
An octopus slithers into a narrow crack near the shore; we see its eye up close. It feeds on a crab. In spring it's time to mate. A male grabs a female; he inserts his third arm in her respiratory cavity. We watch another pair: a larger female is the aggressor here. Mating is repeated over hours...
An educational film, a movie through a microscope, in two parts. Within minutes after the egg drops in the water, fertilization occurs and contractions start. Soon, in a fertilized egg, we see the germinal disc divide into two blastomeres. Divisions continue; contractions re-occur at the cap as it...
Examines the sea horse, the only fish that swims upright. We watch it use its prehensile tail to wrap around plants and other sea horses. A frontal bulge houses organs including an air ballast. Three fins propel this fish. We see a female place her eggs in a male's pouch where they are fertilized...
Title cards introduce images we watch without narration; they are displays of shape and color. François de Roubaix's electronic music accompanies these images, photographed under a polarizing microscope. The crystals appear to move like tiny organisms: small four-part fans share the frame with...
A close-up look at sand urchins and rock urchins. At the seashore, a man digs up a sand urchin. We look closely. He sets it back in the sand, and it burrows out of sight. Its intestines take nutrients out of sand. Using magnification 200,000 times normal size, we see a rock urchin's spines with...
Alexander Calder created and performed one of the most important and beloved works, his miniature circus (1926-1931). More than twenty years later Jean Painleve made Le Grande Cirque Calder 1927, begun in 1953 and completed in 1955.
The one-celled long and slender diatom, up close: discovered in 1703 with the invention of the microscope. We observe them magnified 10,000 times: water expelled through the skeleton, mucilage constantly emitted, allowing it to glide. Their energy comes from sunlight. They divide and disperse. The...
