Wonder and Kent discuss the immersive non-fiction film, Nocturnes, which follows scientists up a remote region of the Himalayas on the hunt for moths. Emerging themes include biodiversity in the midst of climate change, tracking those changes using scientific date, dark skies and what is visible when there is no light, the sound of hundreds of thousands of wings, and how to convey mystery in the absence of explaining it. Astrologically these themes relate to the Earth Element, the 4th and 9th Houses, the Moon, and the lunar sect.
Distribution: Currently on Theatrical Run, more info
Directors: Anirban Dutta & Anupama Srinivasan
Run Time: 82 minutes
Music Credit: spacedust by airtone
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:13.476] Kent Bye: Hello, my name is Kent Bye. Wonder Bright: And I'm Wonder Bright. Kent Bye: And welcome to the Story All the Way Down podcast, where we're breaking down the archetypal dynamics of stories. This season, we're focusing in on 36 documentary films from Sundance 2024. And today we're going to be breaking down a film called Nocturnes. And this is the fifth of six that are focused in the section of Family, Land, and Ancestors. So this was a part of the World Cinema Documentary Competition and actually picked up a special jury award for craft. Lots of really amazing sound design that was happening in this piece. And this film was directed by Anirban Dutta & Anupama Srinivasan. So I wonder if any of you would be willing to read the synopsis for Nocturnes.
[00:00:57.771] Wonder Bright: In the dense forest of the Eastern Himalayas, moths are whispering something to us. In the dark of the night, two curious observers shine a light on this secret universe. Deep in the pitch black forest, a few hundred moths are drawn by a single source of illumination to a piece of hung canvas. Only through this intimate examination can their existence and the happenings of their world be made visible. Though moth lifespans are measured in hours and represent only a small amount of the immense biodiversity of their species, in these small beings lies a history of our planet. With a transportive and experiential visual style and immersive sound that brings you to a place few people can travel, co-directors Anirban Dutta and Anupama Srinivasan's nocturnes gives us a multi-millennia vision of time nearly beyond our human scale perception. And that synopsis comes to us from Sundance programmer Sudeep Sharma.
[00:02:00.297] Kent Bye: Yeah, I think this is one of the films that I would classify as a deeply experiential film in a way that is really trying to create another mode of how to tell stories like this. And I say experiential because there's so much around the sound design that is this whole spatialized sound, because there's basically these researchers that are going out in these mountains in the middle of the night and putting up these sheets with this fluorescent light and it's drawing, like, hundreds and thousands of moths to come just sit on the light. And they're studying these moths and they're trying to figure out, given the different elevations, are they seeing different sizes of these moths? And as they start to track and document these moths, what happens with climate change to see, do they change their patterns, their behaviors? And from what I could tell, it doesn't seem like humans have been studying moths to this degree for very long. It seemed like at the very beginning of really trying to understand these ecosystems. There's a really striking moment when there was like hundreds or thousands of moths on the sheet and the researcher says, this is way too difficult for us to understand what's happening with this many types of species of moths, but we're just going to focus on this one moth, the hawk moth, that they end up tracking and paying attention to throughout the course of this documentary. But I think the experience of the film is very much like an experiential dimension of having these long durational takes, but also we watched it at home with our Vizio 5.1.2 soundbar, but I'm not sure that we were getting the full Dolby Atmos mix that the people in the theaters might've experienced. The fact that it won a special jury award for craft I think speaks to just a different mode for how they're telling the story, but also I think the sound design, and I really wish I would have been able to hear it in a theater to hear the full Dolby mix, because I feel like they put a lot of effort in trying to create a whole spatial dimension of this film and how they were trying to tell the story.
[00:04:05.268] Wonder Bright: Yeah, even though our speakers couldn't do it justice, we were pretty clear listening to it that it wasn’t, like, as high quality as it could be, it was still amazing and immersive to be in this dark room with this, like, small square patch of light where these moths are, and then to hear the hum of their wings fluttering all around us. That was my favorite thing about the film, was the soundtrack, and that immersive experience of feeling really overwhelmed by how many of these creatures there were, and the impossibility of trying to record them. And the sound almost created that experience more than anything else for me because the wings are flapping so fast and there's so many of them. The filmmakers in the intro and then in the Q&A later made a point, as you say, of talking about the effort they went through to really capture the sound and all the different microphones that they used to try and give you that spatialized experience. And even though we weren't experiencing it fully, it still comes across. It really puts you in a space of mystery, and, kind of, awe.
[00:05:34.252] Kent Bye: Yeah, and some of the main protagonists of this film are scientists. And so you have like a 9th House expression of research that's happening here. But I feel like the center of gravity in the heart of this film is really in this 4th House expression of land and our connection to the world around us and the environment. This is in the section of Family and Land and Ancestors. And another 9th House expression is, like, these long distance journeys where these scientists are traveling out into these remote areas in these mountains for where these moths are hanging out, apparently at all different levels of elevation. And I guess the other signification that really stuck out to me was this saturnine nature of not only the really slow durational takes where we're just watching a scene unfold over time, but also how they're really trying to tell the story of different timescales, because these moths have outlived dinosaurs, as an example. They've just been around for much, much longer than humans have. And so in some ways, it could be that if we have all these big changes in the earth due to climate change, that if humans don't survive, then there might be a good chance that these moths continue to survive and even outlive us as humans. And so these scientists are starting to really get a beat on these moths in these specific locations, and yeah, trying to understand how they might tell a larger story of resilience and survival, and being able to look at their behaviors over time and try to draw these broader conclusions for how these changes in the climate may be impacting not only this population of these moths, but extrapolating out how the moths are part of the ecosystem of other animals that are feeding on the moths, the birds and this whole, like, what happens to the larger relational dynamics of all these animals, if one part of the food chain is moving up higher and higher in elevation to the point where at some point, they're not going to be able to escape the heat, because they would be moving upwards over time and there's only so far they can go upwards in the mountains. So, yeah, those are some of the significations that I was really picking up on, but I'd love to hear some of your thoughts.
[00:07:50.117] Wonder Bright: For me, it's definitely an experience of 4th House in terms of land. And similar to some of the films that touch on indigenous themes, this film taps you into an experience of land that is land absent of Western civilization's desire to make land obedient. And, in fact, we discovered later in the Q&A that the region in the Himalayas that the researchers are focused on is actually absent of a lot of the urbanization because it's set on an indigenous nature preserve. And that's why it's so untouched by quote “civilization”, which, you know, actually the fact that that wasn't even made apparent in the context of the film itself was a missing for me. Like, for a film that's following a scientist, which, as you pointed out, is a 9th House profession where we're trying to get a context for things, this film is remarkably lacking in that context. So it was so interesting listening to the filmmakers in the Q&A talk about their experience of engaging with nature in the absence of, like, experiencing it when they would go back to Delhi to do the post-production work. But then when they were actually there in this forest, they're immersed in nature. And so the juxtaposition was one of the main things that they experienced in the process of making the film. But they don't provide that juxtaposition, or provide a context for it in the watching of the film. And I believe it was their intent to just land you inside it, trusting that we would receive it in the absence of having it drawn out for us, because it is so dramatic and otherworldly to be in the world, in this land, in this landscape with these nocturnal creatures that we surely have never seen before in this way. And to a certain extent, I think that that is true. However, I personally would have benefited for a little more context around those things and specifically a little more of the context as to why the scientist was so keen to follow these moths and specifically the hawk moth. So they drop these little tidbits of information, but it's just barely enough for your mind to hang on to. And, although I can see the desire to drop us into an experience rather than giving us a context for the experience, for me, the thing that had them feel it, was the juxtaposition with their lives in the urbanized centers. And they didn't provide that, in either a mental way of explaining what was happening, or in an experiential way by contrasting the city scenes with this wilderness. And so it didn't come across in the same way. But still, this is clearly a 4th House thing for me, you know, it is about the land, but because it's not so much explicated or given the context, it's less that 9th House expression to my mind. One thing I would pull out though is that because these moths are nocturnal, a lot of the film happens at night and they're really clear about the relationship to the moon in terms of the moths. That they're going to get better moth coverage when they're closer to a new moon because the moon is not visible in those times. And what that means is that the light that they're using to shine on this canvas will attract the moths better if it's a new moon. Because it's not in competition with the moon, which, like, how often can you say that anymore in a world where we have so much light pollution that everything competes with the light of the moon? So they're under dark skies and they are able to cultivate this nocturnal experience and have these nocturnal creatures flock to this light in the absence of competition from the moon. The film is called Nocturnes. And that to me is just extremely evocative of the Hellenistic astrological idea of sect, where the light of the Moon is just as important as the light of the Sun, and where we have to understand that different things happen at night than happen during the day. And that how bright the Moon is actually has a lot to do with the experience of what happens on the earth. And so this film, I think, moves us into a space of the lunar sect where there's an experience of objects sort of merging together, you know, like under the light of the sun, every object is distinct from the other. The path forward is really simple and easy to see, but under the light of the moon, all objects blur together and they become invisible or inseparable from one another. And, you know, in this film, our scientists, our intrepid scientists are shining a bright light onto these creatures that only come out at night and in the dark. But there's something really evocative about the mysterious nature of the night that I think still has a hold on us, at least insofar as we're determined to banish it and increase light pollution as much as we possibly can. I think there's just this space where human beings are inherently terrified of mystery and things that we can't control. And one of the primary ways of controlling things is to shine a light on it, and to just banish darkness and to get rid of mystery altogether. And this is a film that simultaneously is doing that and yet is acknowledging the depth of life that exists in those nocturnal, mysterious spaces. And so that was really evocative to me.
[00:14:24.387] Kent Bye: Yeah, a number of points that come up. One is that there's a film called The City Dark that traces light pollution across different cities around the world, but just trying to show how for a lot of cities, this light pollution has gotten to the point where we are so afraid of the dark that we need to have so many lights. But there are some communities that have actually banded together and they've been able to pass local light pollution laws to preserve the night. But I really love that call to the lunar sect and the Moon, because of the literal light from the Moon is going to be disruptive of their process of studying these moths. And things that you were saying around the solar sect versus the lunar sect, the day versus night, It reminds me of Chinese philosophy where the yang is the expression of the day and the Sun, and the yin is the Moon and the night, and how during the day you do have distinct shadows between an individual and the Sun, and that helps to differentiate an individual, a self, in a way that ends up being about this individuation of the ego. And then how at night it's a lot about this undifferentiated light that comes from the Moon, but also all the different lights that are coming from the stars that comes to the relational dynamics of how those lights from those stars are traveling across many light years to reach us. And so it's a really different experience of time, both the cyclical nature of time that is reflected in the Moon, this yin expression is much more about how the individual is connected to the larger whole. So the film is called Nocturnes, and they're starting to really talk about how these moths are interconnected to the larger dynamics of the earth. And I remember that there were a couple of films when we were watching this year's batch of selections from Sundance 2024, where we get to the end and watch the Q&A, and there's a lot of additional context where we say to ourselves, wow, I wish we would have had that piece of information in the film. That helps to tell a broader story that would have been helpful. It's difficult to make judgments as to what should or should not be included in films, but I think in this film, they made the very deliberate choice to make this much more of an experiential film in a way that's trying to be really minimalist in what additional speaking or talking that's going on. So much so that I feel like there is the signification of the 9th House that I mentioned, but I think the overarching signification for me is back to this earth element where you really getting this experience of the environment, but also, like, I feel like of all the films that we watched at Sundance this year, this is one that I would think would do a really great translation into like a 360 degree video or 180 video where you're able to actually be immersed and feel like you're there able to see the majesty of this scene and moths flying around with all the spatial audio. That's just to say that with the medium of virtual reality and 180 / 360 video, it affords us to be able to have these different takes. And I feel like this topic, of Nocturnes, of these moths, is the one story that I think would be the best translation into an immersive, like, a fully immersive experience rather than an immersive from a film, but with the spatialized audio. I feel like this is a topic that could go even further. But yeah, it isn't until the very end of the film where we actually hear some of the scientists present some of their preliminary data that we're getting a lot of the deeper context for why they were even focusing on the hawk moths. It's like, They're talking about them throughout the course of the film, but we don't understand why until the very end when she's giving more context to what they're doing. So I think the experience of the film is there's just a lot of space and spaciousness. I think this might have been one of the films that I decided to not take as many notes because there was not a lot of narrative beats. I felt like I just needed to surrender to what was happening in the experience and to just watch what was unfolding in a way that, you know, just kind of watching the spectacle of these different scenes.
[00:18:16.406] Wonder Bright: Yeah, I'm laughing at myself because I feel like I gave a pretty good argument for them to create it in that way when I described it as being a very lunar sect expression, and yet my main problem with the film is that I actually wanted less mystery and I wanted them to tell me more. Why are we here? Why this moth? What does this mean? Um, so yeah, I still feel that way. Even if I acknowledge that, like, there's like a real validity to creating this alternate expression. Yeah.
[00:18:58.324] Kent Bye: Well, when we think about Nocturnes and all that we've talked about so far, who would you prescribe this film to?
[00:19:04.560] Wonder Bright: I would prescribe this film to anyone who wants a more direct experience of the lunar sect. It's for all the reasons that I described it as being a lunar sect film. You know, we've really lost touch with the mystery of the night at this point. Our explorations into space have allowed us to understand why night exists. But have we? I think this film points in a really interesting direction around the experience of the night and who it might belong to, or what it might belong to, in a way that is actually really quite loving and embracing.
[00:19:53.960] Kent Bye: Yeah, and when I think about what I want to bear witness to in this film, there aren't a lot of protagonists in this film. There’s, like, a couple of scientists, they're having other helpers that seem to be more, like, local indigenous folks that are helping out. And I think the thing that I'm really struck with, of what I'm going to be remembering and taking away, is the actual moths themselves to just see how they're all kind of fluttering together and gathering, and the different sizes and the whole huge amount of diversity to the moths, and to just be with the moths. I feel like this is a film where I just had a chance to be with moths in a way that I've never been with moths, and just to see how diverse all the different possible moths there are, especially in this location in the Himalayas in India. And so, yeah, it was just a really magical experience just to kind of be present with these moths and to hear them all around me through the spatialized sound.
[00:20:48.158] Wonder Bright: I love that you said that. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I was thinking the scientist, but I think it's because she brought us there and the filmmakers brought us there. And because of that, we got to witness this phenomena, that I've never heard such a thing in my life. It's really it's quite extraordinary.
[00:21:19.600] Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, that's all that we have for today. And I just want to thank you for listening to the Story All the Way Down podcast. And if you enjoy the podcast, then please do, spread the word, and tell your friends, and consider signing up on the newsletter at storyallthewaydown.com. Thanks for listening. Wonder Bright: Thank you.
