The second time I watched this I started wondering whether there was any difference between this and the 'cute' anthropomorphic Disney films I own on Super 8. Take away forty years of lens technology and you're left with "Sloth vs. Jaguar", right? Well not quite - for one thing it's erotic, thanks in part but not entirely to the enhanced capacity for intimacy that those lenses provide. For another, it's got a bit of a structure, and it aims for mystery. Also, it confines the stupid voice-over to the bookends, not that I wouldn't rather that they dispatched it entirely, which goes double for the sporadic John Villiamsisms of the soundtrack. While I eventually stopped suspecting CGI, I do not doubt that some of it was staged, including one of my favourite scenes, the dung beetle rolling the dirt ball. Still, there's a lot of beauty in here, and even some small portion of the 'mystery' is justified by the content. We'd been waiting to see some of these facts of life first-hand for a long, long time.
Review of Microcosmos
