Microcosmos

It presents the viewer with a gorgeous series of tableaux starring the amazing micro-fauna occupying a meadow. I guarantee the first thing that springs to mind when viewing Microcosmos for the first time is "how did they film that?!!" Achingly beautiful close-ups of ants, caterpillars, butterflies, snails, ladybirds, the bizarrely alien-looking mantis and dozens more give us an unique insight into the oft-ignored world beneath our feet.

The whole 72 minutes is one great therapeutic trip - just sit in your comfiest chair and let the vivid colours and sumptuous sound (natural insect noises occasionally punctuated with minimalist ambient music) wash over you.

Favourite scenes include the sissyphus-like dung-beetle, the ants at the "waterhole", the snail lovers, the spider's "aqualung", the stag beetles' battle and the jaw-droppingly stunning finale of the nascent mosquito breaking free of the meniscus of the pond on its impossibly long legs. Even the moment of microcosmic horror, when a strangely prehistoric looking pheasant perpetrates some genocide, is magnificently filmed and utterly satisfying.

Possibly the first wildlife film to cross the boundary into pure art.

I guarantee you will feel a better and more harmonious person for having viewed Microcosmos.


Go to the Ant, Thou Sluggard!   June 22, 2004
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

My first viewing of Microcosmos left me enchanted. It also left me feeling as if I'd emerged from an hour in a hot tub, and I slept like a baby. The enchantment and the deliciously soporific effect kicked in immediately with Viewing Two, and other impressions began to form as well. Impressions of gentle hilarity; of existential horror; of earthly abundance that-like fractile geometry-moves you closer to infinity the closer you look.

"Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise." [Proverbs VI:vi.] Why, I often wonder, are we always so compelled to draw human lessons and morals from observations of Nature and her creatures? Why must we always anthropomorphize the creatures instead of taking them according to their own mysterious natures? Well, watching the scene of the mating snails makes me surrender these objections. Nakedness and tenderness can't have much more to teach us than they do in this encounter and delicate mutual exploration. The fact that the snails wind up rolling over into the grass is just a bonus!

The score for this film is perfectly inspired by and wed to its subject. A few words, a few bars of music, a vast silence. Brilliant.

Despite the fun it is to watch this film, I rarely watch it. Like food cravings, Microcosmos lets you know when it's time to watch. And then it's completely satisfying. After you've seen it, you'll never walk through grass the same way again.