Filming moths requires incredible patience. The makers of The Nocturnes, Anupama Srinivasan and Anirban Dutta, pulled off this challenging task to depict the unseen and glorious world that these small creatures navigate.
The soundscape of the Sundance-winning documentary deserves special mention. The buzzing of the moth wings creates a trance that hooks the audience through the entire stretch of the documentary.
The film follows a lepidopterist and her aide’s jouney of surveying hawk moths in the eastern Himalayas. As a person working closely with scientists and biologists, I can relate to the treacherous challenges they faced collect data during surveys, the fatiguing challenges of which the film aptly captures.
As Dutta said after the film’s Delhi premiere, their idea was not to produce a movie about the science involving the work of lepidopterists but everything else that the science involves; the friendship between the protagonist Mansi and Bicki, a youth from the remote Khellong area of Arunachal Pradesh added layers to the film.
The background score of the documentary, composed entirely of bird calls (during the day) and sounds of crickets, moths and, at times, raindrops falling on the leaves of the forest, elevated the storytelling.
The film was shot extensively in the dense forests of the West Kameng district in Arunachal Pradesh, which borders Bhutan. These forests are home to endemic birds like the Ward’s trogon and Satyr tragopans, which are endemic to the region. According to recent surveys, mammals like elephants and even tigers have been traversing the landscape.
As Dutta added, Nocturnes doesn’t explain the science behind the study of moths but focuses on the viewer’s experience to be a part of the observation process that is an integral part, capturing the delicate movements and patterns of moths as they are studied in the field.
An element of humour during a conversation between Bicky and two of his colleagues about how elephants strayed into their camp areas and “stole their clothes” highlights the challenges under which researchers work.
The cinematography is particularly laudable, capturing the lush eastern Himalayan landscapes and the intricate details of moth wings. Cinematographer Satya Rai Nagpaul has combined the calls of birds like the common cuckoo and the golden orioles into the soundscape that includes the ambient noises of the forest and the wing flaps of the moths, almost creating a trance among the viewers.
Srinivasan shared that Nagpaul has even gone into the intricacies of maintaining the calls of birds based on their habitat and altitude. This no doubt requires a fair understanding of the ecology of the region.
The film slowly pans out into the elements of climate change affecting the ecology and behaviour of the species, too, through minimal narration, turning it into a meditative experience.
Though no interviews discuss the environmental impacts, typical of documentaries about ecological threats, an underlying thread discussing the fragile ecology through conversations between the protagonists aptly brings it out.
Overall, the gripping documentary feature provokes you to wonder about the fragility of India’s ecosystems and perhaps immerses you into the world of the tiny moths that hold up a mirror. It ends with the protagonists wondering that the moths fly higher into the mountains as the earth heats up, leaving you wondering what would happen when it reaches its peak.
Somreet Bhattacharya writes on ecological conservation.