Microcosmos

Last updated by Darren on 03 July 2009

Micro0477

Microcosmos, Claude Nuridsany and Marie Pérennou's incredible film of a meadow on a summers day, released in 1996, 84 minutes. In Microcosmos the animal world is bought to life with the aid of 'Macrovision ' and specially adapted cameras.  In Microcosmos the images are so good that you have to remind yourself that this is real life, and this happens every hour of every day.

Microcosmos provides romance, chivalry, humor, drama and a unique look at entomological eroticism. 15 years of research, 2 years of equipment design, 3 years of shooting, Microcosmos shows that you don't have to turn to science fiction to find an alien and unimaginable world.

My opinion

Microcosmos is an excellent film. Its feel is fundamentally different to the other films, and some people find it more difficult to watch. But after just a short time most people become entranced. The images in Microcosmos are very well chosen. Some of the scenes have been used in advertisements, promos and trailers. For example the classic shot of the beetle struggling with his precious sphere as it becomes lodged on a stray root.
Some doubt the authenticity of some of the scenes, with some thing's begin just too convenient. The brief passage of narration at the start of the film which sets the scene, is the only narration.  Microcosmos is an excellent film, its different to the others, but it is as refreshing as it is different.

A reviewers opinion...

"Microcosmos is the best microscope a kid (or former kid) ever had; everybody who's ever spent a long summer afternoon exploring the local six-legged fauna (and I have to assume that that's just about everybody on the planet) will get a kick out of it. Not unlike the trio of film made by Godfrey Reggio and/or Ron Fricke - Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, and Baraka - it eschews context-setting narration and titles (apart from a brief and unnecessary introduction and conclusion, spoken by Kristin Scott Thomas, which I'm guessing Miramax demanded), choosing instead to simply plunge the viewer without warning into its bizarre and beautiful landscape. See a multitude of insects hang on for dear life as raindrops as big as they are batter the leaves to which they're clinging! WATCH! with awe as a pheasant treats an ant colony the way Godzilla generally treats Tokyo! Gape as two snails do the nasty before your very eyes! Using specially-designed cameras, Nuridsany and Pérennou photograph the insect world with such clarity that it becomes unreal, fantastic; many of the creatures on display here look as though they were created by Rob Bottin or Stan Winston. Speaking of which, my one complaint is that the directors sometimes try a bit too hard to create narrative "events" for us, which leads to skepticism about whether what we're seeing "really happened." An ant accidentally drops a clod of dirt into the hole it's digging, and the film cuts immediately to a dirt clod falling on the head of another ant inside a hole -- did they have two cameras running simultaneously within and without, or was this moment "staged" for our benefit? Perhaps the former, but to leave such questions unanswered is to ask for trouble; I occasionally found myself resisting the film, because I couldn't be sure that what I was seeing was real (and if it isn't, then all the magic is gone). A few lingering doubts aside, though, Microcosmos is a fascinating, eerie, and almost literally unbelievable film; it puts most recent special-effects extravaganzas to shame. "

 

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Credits

  • Directed and Filmed by Claude Nuridsany & Marie Perennou.
  • Edited by Marie-Josephe Yoyotte & Florence Ricard.
  • Music by Bruno Coulais.

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