In UK cinemas from 14 October
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鈥淗UNDREDS of birds are falling out of the sky every day,鈥� says Nadeem Shehzad, by far the grumpier of two brothers whose life鈥檚 work is to rescue the injured raptors and water birds of Delhi. 鈥淲hat amazes me is that people go on as if everything鈥檚 normal.鈥�
In Shaunak Sen鈥檚 All That Breathes, which won a Grand Jury prize at this year鈥檚 Sundance Film Festival, people aren鈥檛 the only ones making the best of things under Delhi鈥檚 polluted skies. The city is also home to rats, pigs, frogs, mosquitoes, turtles, cows, horses and birds, especially black kites, which have now replaced vultures as the city鈥檚 chief recycling service, cleaning up after its many slaughterhouses and meat-processing plants.
The film follows Nadeem, his brother Mohammad Saud and their young cousin Salik Rehman as they struggle to turn their family obsession into a wildlife hospital at their home. No sooner is another funding bid completed than their meat mincer for kite food breaks down. No sooner is a wounded bird stitched up than there is a power cut. What happens to the family鈥檚 sewer connection when the monsoon arrives doesn鈥檛 even bear discussing.
These struggles are compelling, and yet this isn鈥檛 really a film about humans. It is about, quite literally, 鈥渁ll that breathes鈥�. The humans are just one more animal trying to eke out a living in and around the streets of Delhi, one of the world鈥檚 most populous cities.
The cousins compare notes on the threat of nuclear war between India and Pakistan while, barely 2 kilometres away, riots tear up the streets. Feral pigs cross a nearby stream. A millipede eases itself out of a puddle, even as a passing plane casts its reflection in the water.
The documentary opens with a sumptuous panning shot across a rat-infested rubbish dump. Filmed at a rodent鈥檚-eye level, bare centimetres off the ground, a fascinating, complex world is revealed. Later, we hear that Hindu nationalists are linking Delhi鈥檚 Muslim population with disease and poor hygiene. Those with any historical sense will know where this thinking can lead.
Whether or not one picks up on all the film鈥檚 nested ironies is left to the viewer. Sen鈥檚 method isn鈥檛 to present an argument, but rather to get us to see things in a new way. Of the film鈥檚 black kites, Sen has said: 鈥淚 want audiences to leave the theatre and immediately look up.鈥�
Achieving this requires a certain artifice. We may wonder how a tortoise can reach the top of a pile of rubbish just in time to watch a motorbike career around a distant corner. The human conversations are also somewhat problematic. After watching so many handheld documentaries, I found them a bit too on-message, a bit too polished.
But why cavil at such a powerful and insightful film? Filmed in 2020 and 2021 by cinematographers Ben Bernhard, Riju Das and Saumyananda Sahi, All That Breathes inhales extreme close-ups and cramped interiors, and exhales vertiginous skyscapes and city skylines.
The story of Delhi鈥檚 black kites, often injured by the glass-coated threads used to fly and battle paper kites 鈥� one of Delhi鈥檚 most popular pastimes 鈥� might have been better served by a more straightforward story. But then they would have become a small, even inconsequential problem.
The whole point of Sen鈥檚 film is that the kites are a bellwether. We are all in this emergency together, struggling to fly, struggling to breathe.
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