THE STORY – Amidst the lush Eastern Himalayan forests, moths convey a mysterious message. Under the cover of night, two inquisitive observers illuminate this clandestine universe, unraveling the secrets whispered by these enigmatic creatures.
THE CAST – Ramana Athreya, Gendan Marphew & Mansi Mungee
THE TEAM – Anirban Dutta & Anupama Srinivasan (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 82 minutes
Before we see a single image in the new documentary “Nocturnes,” we hear the fluttering. It signals a rapid movement of wings — a small bird, perhaps, or maybe a bat? But a closer look at the shooting figures of light beginning to fill the frame reveals that they are actually moths — hundreds of them — attracted by the light emanating from a screen set up in the jungle. And there, across the screen, cling to an array of moths in all shapes, colors, and sizes, forming a unique tapestry that lingers in our memory throughout the entire film.
Set in a remote mountain region in the Eastern Himalayas, “Nocturnes” chronicles the work being done studying moths by ecologist Mansi Mungee and her assistant Bicki, an Indigenous member of the local Bugan community. The area around the India-Bhutan border in which they work is renowned for its wide variety of moths, but the only practical time when the moths can be studied is the ten days on either side of the new moon. With the light from the moon dimmed, Mansi’s light screen can now compete, thus drawing the moths to the light screen where they can be examined and photographed. On those nights, like the moths, Mansi and Bicki become nocturnal.
Co-directors Anirban Dutta and Anupama Srinivasan have created a documentary that is not necessarily interested in a strong narrative hook nor primarily invested in teaching us lessons (although I learned more about moths in “Nocturnes” than I ever thought I wanted to know). Instead, they have made an immersive experience, relying on the sights and sounds of the forest to build their world so that what we see and hear is unlike anything we encounter daily.
“Nocturnes” is a film that relies more on showing rather than telling the message it wants to impart. With minimal dialogue explaining her process, Mansi will pin, photograph, and ultimately measure the scores of moths on her light screen so that we can, too, marvel at the enormous variety of moths and become invested in her success. Bicki seems at times overwhelmed by their sheer number, but Mansi keeps her focus, centering her study on the rarely-seen hawk moth, known for its agile flying ability, so much so that it is often mistaken for a hummingbird.
The filmmakers have little interest in creating character arcs for Mansi and Bicki — the dialogue they exchange is usually focused on the job at hand. Even so, several astonishing facts about moths are revealed — for example, I had no idea that there are more than 150,000 species of moths on the planet and that moths have been here for almost 300 million years, pre-dating dinosaurs. This knowledge only makes Mansi more determined to see her study through as she measures the effects of climate and altitude on the development of the hawk moth to better understand whether the rising temperatures caused by climate change will threaten the moth’s very existence in the future years.
As provocative as many of the ideas in “Nocturnes” may be, I suspect that the primary takeaway that viewers will have after seeing “Nocturnes” is a visceral one. The film’s crafts, which won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, are the real stars here. Satya Rai Nagpaul’s cinematography, for one, captures imagery as vast as the fog-bound vistas that greet the forest morning and as finely detailed as the contours of the wings of the hawk moth, seen in remarkable close-ups. When paired with Nainita Desai’s spare but impressive score, a mood is created that only enhances the directors’ world-building.
The film’s real MVP, however, is the enveloping sound design by Tom Paul and Shreyank Nanjappa. From before we see the film’s first images to after the final visuals have faded, their soundscape is consistently alive, filled with the cheeping, chirping, and fluttering that engrosses us in the life of this forest. Their sounds are so finely mixed that after some time, you begin to believe that you can actually recognize and distinguish from which creature the sounds are coming. It’s a remarkable piece of sound design.
The film’s limited character development does cause sections not devoted to the moths to drag—we could have easily lost a lengthy discussion by local workers about how wet their clothes are. But even then, the filmmakers are usually quick to provide yet another new natural wonder designed to dazzle our eyes and entice our ears.