You are an ant. Following a trail through a forest of grass, you climb over vast boulders, dwarfed by the green vault looming over you. The air is alive, buzzing, humming, as you pause at the gigantic dome of a raindrop that lies in your path, the Jurassic landscape reflected over its curved surface. Suddenly, thunder cracks, and seconds later, liquid cannonballs hurtle down at you, exploding all around, breaking over you, engulfing you Welcome to Microcosmos, a microscopic universe of vast proportions, where the everyday worker ant is a strange, exotic creature, and getting caught in a storm is a potentially fatal mistake.
The brainchild of two French biologists let loose in a field in Aveyron, Microcosmos is where Jurassic Park meets Star Trek, and it is happening every day in a back garden near you.
"It's a return to science-fiction movies: the same exoticism, the same excitement in the face of the unknown," says Claude Nuridsany, who, along with partner Marie Pérennou, directed, photographed and, basically, gave birth to the project. "However, the difference lies in the fact we show the 'wondrous truth', not the wonders conjured up by our imagination. What we regard as the most banal lifeforms on our planet are actually living in a fantastic realm."
Despite the subject matter, the filmmakers cringe at the word "documentary". Having created "animal characters" that form complex relationships, they refer to Microcosmos as a "poetic drama". There is even a cast list - praying mantis, bumblebee, green tree frog, etc although any previous credits are currently unavailable.
"The inhabitants of this world aren't simply interchangeable representatives of animal species," explains Nuridsany. "They're individuals struggling with the problems of daily life, its surprises, comical situations, accidents and pleasures."
Principal members of the ensemble include the harvester ants, who live in a secret world of rigid social castes. While workers scour the field for any scraps of food they can get their mandibles on, sentries wait at the entrance to the nest, ready turn them away if their proffered morsels are deemed not to be tasty enough. And when a wayward mole burrows through the nest, leaving a wake of carnage behind it, no prizes for guessing who cleans up the mess.
It gets even gorier when the ladybird enters. Everybody's favourite invertebrate is here cast against type as a relentless, aphid-devouring monster. Another villain of the piece is the macabre mason wasp, who paralyses helpless caterpillars and places them inside its nest to feed the larvae. And if that sounds grisly, the battle of the rhinoceros beetles is a positive blood bath.
But there is beauty too. Water spiders skate over the mirrored surface of a pond, their upside-down ref-lections quivering beneath them. Dragonflies couple in mid-air, coming to rest on a floating carpet of water buttercups to recover from post-coital tristesse. Of course, every dragonfly on the block has the same idea at the same time, so with a whole swarm of shagged-out couples coveting the same landing strip, only the fittest survive.
Working without the aid of any computerised simulations, the film took five years to make because Nuridsany and Pérennou had to wait for everything to actually happen. Using standard 35mm film, they relied on changes of scale and trick photography, combined with natural sounds, music and colour effects to "reconcile science and poetry", as Nuridsany puts it. Their most ingenious device was a computerised min-iature robot which, carrying a camera, permitted high-precision photography while preserving the fluid poetry of the shot.
"The poetical element makes it something completely new, a kind of Alice in Wonderland," says Yvette Mallet, one of a trio of producers at Jacques Perrin's Galatée Films. Renowned for wildlife documentaries like Monkey Folk, Galatée agreed to Nuridsany and Pérennou's proposal immediately, securing almost US$4.8 million from private investors, French network FR2 and the French Ministry of Culture and Education. "I must admit, I liked the mosquitoes," says Mallet, elaborating on the reasons for Galatée's decision to produce the film. "Their birth is so beautiful, so full of colour - even if the rest of their life is crap."
Reaching Cannes proves that, rather than being just an educational film, Microcosmos is art, and its official selection recognises that the boundaries of film are shifting. Moreover, for those on the Croisette who grow weary of sub-texts and polemics, Mallet's summation of Microcosmos' purpose is a breath of fresh air: "There is no message really, except that we should look around more…Oh yes, and watch where you step."
Adam Minns
Prod Co: Galatée Films
Prod: Jacques Perrin, Christopher Barratier, Yvette Mallet
Mus: Bruno Coulais
Dir: Claude Nuridsany, Marie Pérennou
Ph: Claude Nuridsany, Marie Pérennou
Sound: Laurent Quaglio
Ed: Marie-Josephe Yoyotte
Running time: 76mins
Int sales: President Films
