Synopsis:
A deserted pond, two lonely children fall under the spell of this wild place that, little by little, draws them closer to each other and gives them the strength to cope with life. Seen through their eyes, and through their imaginations, the pond becomes a secret kingdom, both marvellous and frightening, thronging with creatures born from dreams or nightmares. The children experience an initiation, brief and intense, from which they will emerge transformed.

3.58GB | 1h 21mn | 1280×692 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/52CF52A70CBC68E/The_Field_of_Enchantment_720p.mkv
https://nitroflare.com/view/DE157D55AE5D8ED/The_Field_of_Enchantment_720p_.srt

Language(s):French or German
Subtitles:English

The post Claude Nuridsany & Marie Pérennou – La Clé des Champs AKA The Field of Enchantment (2011) (HD) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
“A documentary of insect life in meadows and ponds, using incredible close-ups, slow motion, and time-lapse photography…”

Review:
Children, being built nearer to the ground and having more time on their hands, are close observers of ants and spiders, caterpillars and butterflies. Adults tune them out; bugs are things you slap, swat, step on or spray. “Microcosmos” is an amazing film that allows us to peer deeply into the insect world and marvel at creatures we casually condemn to squishing. The makers of this film took three years to design their closeup cameras and magnifying lenses, and to photograph insects in such brilliant detail that if they were cars, we could read their city stickers.

The movie is a work of art and whimsy as much as one of science. It uses only a handful of words, but is generous with music and amplified sound effects, dramatizing the unremitting struggle of survival that goes on in a meadow in France. If a camera could somehow be transported to another planet, in order to photograph alien life forms, would the result be any more astonishing than these invasions into the private lives of snails and bees, mantises and beetles, spiders and flies?

Where did these forms come from? These legs — two, four, six, a thousand? Eyes like bombardier’s turrets? Giant pincers? Honeyed secretions? Metamorphoses from a wormy crawling thing into a glorious flying thing? Grasshoppers that look like plants, and beetles that look like ants? Every one of these amazing creatures represents a successful Darwinian solution to the problem of how to reproduce and make a living. And so do we.

One beautiful creature after another takes the screen. There is a parade of caterpillars. A dung beetle, tirelessly moving his treasure. Two snails engaging in a long and very loving wet kiss. Spiders methodically capturing and immobilizing their prey (what a horrible fate; does the victim understand what has happened to it?). Ants construct lives of meticulous order and then a hungry pheasant comes along and gobbles up thousands of them. More ants construct more anthills, flawless in design and function, and then the hills are bombed by raindrops that look to them as big as beach balls.

There is a fight to the death between two beetles, and their struggle looks as gargantuan as the battling dinosaurs in “Jurassic Park.” There are tiny insects who live in, on and for the nectar supplied by plants that are perfectly designed for them. Ladybugs seem so ill-designed to fly that every takeoff seems like a clumsy miracle; do they get sweaty palms? Overhead there is a towering canopy of jungle foliage, consisting of the grasses and flowers of the meadow.

See whatever other movies you want to this year. “Microcosmos” is in a category of its own. There is no other film like it. If the movies allow us to see places we have not visited and people we do not know, then “Microcosmos” dramatically extends the range of our vision, allowing us to see the world of the creatures who most completely and enduringly inhabit the Earth.

Sometimes the closeup cameras are almost embarrassingly intimate; should we blush, to see these beings engaged in their crucial daily acts of dining, loving, fighting, being born and dying? You may leave this movie feeling a little like a god. Or like a big, inelegant and energy-inefficient hunk of clunky design. Of course, we’re smart and they’re not. We know the insects exist, and they don’t know we exist. Or need to.

— Roger Ebert

2.29GB | 1h 15mn | 960×576 | mkv

https://nitroflare.com/view/C1466352A849060/Microcosmos.1996.576p.BluRay.x264.mkv

Language:French
Subtitles:English (Muxed)

The post Claude Nuridsany & Marie Pérennou – Microcosmos: Le peuple de l’herbe AKA Microcosmos (1996) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Remember childhood holidays frolicking in the countryside? When time is gone, or when grown-ups are gone, will there be no more rolling meadows with fields of poppies, trees to climb and hide in or playful butterflies? What is this secret life all about? At the center of the film, made by the directors of Microcosmos, is a pond, where two lonely children are silently prowling around this small kingdom, seeing, dreaming and playing. Through cameras and microscopes, the filmmakers depict their passion for nature by closely observing plant and animal life and then adding a charming story with human characters. Subtle sound effects and music add a dramatic dimension to their humorous and fantastic observations which are sure to stimulate the imagination of young and old.

https://nitro.download/view/8A4CED992943635/La.Cle.Des.Champs.avi

Language:French
Subtitles:None

The post Claude Nuridsany & Marie Pérennou – La clé des champs (2011) first appeared on Cinema of the World.