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- 2012
- Not Rated
- Kimstim Films
- 1 h 12 m
- 2012
- Not Rated
- Kimstim Films
- 1 h 12 m
Summary Along the rhythm of the changing seasons they watch one another. Bestiary unfolds like a filmed picture book about mutual observation, about peculiar perception. A contemplation of a stable imbalance, and of lose, calm and indefinable elements. (Metafilms)
Directed By: Denis Côté
Written By: Denis Côté
- 2012
- Not Rated
- Kimstim Films
- 1 h 12 m
- 2012
- Not Rated
- Kimstim Films
- 1 h 12 m
Bestiaire
71
User Score
Available after 4 ratings
tbd
Where to Watch
Summary Along the rhythm of the changing seasons they watch one another. Bestiary unfolds like a filmed picture book about mutual observation, about peculiar perception. A contemplation of a stable imbalance, and of lose, calm and indefinable elements. (Metafilms)
Directed By: Denis Côté
Written By: Denis Côté
Where to Watch
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 7 Critic Reviews
71
86% Positive
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
14% Mixed
1 Review
1 Review
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 7 Critic Reviews
71
86% Positive
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
14% Mixed
1 Review
1 Review
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Bestiaire argues persuasively without words, making a case without explicating one at all.
The film has a meditative calm about it — there are only a few murmured words of French but nothing that could be called dialogue — with also some underlying tension, because as you look at the animals, they so often look back, their inscrutable consciousness both placid and unyielding.
This may not be a fuzzy wuzzy, warm-and-cuddly song to animals, but in revealing the everyday, sometimes repellent surrealism of the park - where zebras, elephants, camels and ostriches walk among slowly moving cars, and lions bang wildly against their small cages - he forces you to look at the often unseen. It may not be pretty, but it is essential viewing.
There's a compulsion to describe a film with such a slow and unusual pace as poetic - it already has a Netflix blurb calling it "lyrical" - but Bestiaire's best quality is its unpretentiousness.
Bestiaire is, most profoundly, about the dynamics of looking, an exercise in studying gazes that are either unidirectional or, superficially, at least, reciprocated.
The images are meant to accumulate shame, and they do. But they also might be too much.
Tediousness sets in eventually; there's only so much zoological abyss-gazing one can do.
User Reviews
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Production Company
Metafilms,
Le Fresnoy Studio National des Arts Contemporains
Release Date Oct 19, 2012
Duration 1 h 12 m
Rating Not Rated
Genres
Awards
Jutra Awards
• 2 Nominations
Tokyo International Film Festival
• 1 Nomination
Cinema Eye Honors Awards, US
• 1 Nomination
