A new breed of documentary
There’s a moment in “Gunda,” an artful documentary about barnyard animals, that could take its place in a list of the year’s best scenes. The star, Gunda, a sow with a bustling litter of piglets, has just experienced an unmistakable trauma. Pacing around the farm, she conveys a palpable agitation and emotion before turning to look at the camera, pointedly.
This isn’t the sort of thing we’re accustomed to seeing in nature films. It feels as if we’re getting a glimpse into Gunda’s inner life, and there’s no narrator telling us what the animal might be thinking. It’s emotionally engaging and feels distinctive to Gunda instead of an illustration of the species or the planet as a whole.
More frequently, a voiceover and a crystal-clear story guide our attention and define our understanding of what we’re seeing in a nature documentary. There’s no shortage of drama, to be sure, but usually it’s spectacular: tales of survival or mass migration. Even when we’re not looking at a panorama on the scale of “Planet Earth,” the context seems to overshadow the animal.
But there are signs of new directions in how animals are portrayed in nature films. “Gunda,” which opened Friday via virtual cinema, feels like part of this movement, along with a different but also unusual film, “My Octopus Teacher,” on Netflix. Both present animals as beings apart from us, not just objects of wonder or scientific study, and with qualities that are all their own, not shadows of human emotions.
“Let’s film animals the same way we film humans,” Victor Kossakovsky, director of “Gunda,” said he told his cameraman. “If you feel like they need space, let them be. If you feel they are comfortable, you come closer.”
You’ve probably already had “My Octopus Teacher” recommended to you by friends or family. Over the course of a year, a South African naturalist, Craig Foster, becomes fascinated by and emotionally involved with a small octopus. We observe the vicissitudes of her life and moments of contact with Foster, who explains his experience in segments that seem a therapy session.
What makes the film stand out is that this is most definitely not a God’s-eye account of an octopus’s life.
Foster’s ardent curiosity reflects a different approach to animals than that of the traditionally authoritative conservationist or guide.
“They’re more or less letting the animals live, and they’re trusting the viewers more to make their own conclusions,” said Dennis Aig, at Montana State University, where he runs a program on nature filmmaking. “Even in larger blue-chip movies, this kind of sensitivity is starting to emerge.”
Blue-chip documentaries like the dazzling “Planet Earth” series loom large in the minds of many viewers. But nature films have had an evolving lineage. Early 20thcentury accounts of safaris and exploration gave way to Disney’s anthropomorphic appreciations of the animal kingdom. Eventually, a conservationist ethos and sense of discovery took hold, with a perceived desire for spectacular shots (no doubt given a boost by the arrival of HD television and ever larger screens in the 2000s).