Nocturnes

Nocturnes is a rare and exquisite species of documentary, a meditative ode to the slow, thankless rhythms of scientific fieldwork – and to the untrammeled wonder that rustles beneath the seemingly dry human compulsion to count, measure, and record. For 82 minutes, filmmakers Anirban Dutta and Anupama Srinivasan follow along with rapt focus as entomologist Mansi Mungee and her assistants navigate the buzzing mountain forests of the Eastern Himalayas. Mungee’s thesis involves the study of hawk moths (family Sphingidae) and their distribution across the temperature micro-environments that occur at different jungle elevations. However, this is not a documentary that is all that concerned with educating the viewer on the finer details of its subject. What little information that the feature provides on the ecology of hawk moths is mostly incidental, gleaned from Mungee’s conversations with her mentor and assistants, as well as her irregular voiceover musings on the meaning of it all. Nocturnes is foremost a tone poem about the invisible labor of humankind’s perpetual quest to understand the world, and about the quietly indominable feedback loop of awe that drives that search.

Reteaming from their 2023 feature, Flickering Lights, co-directors Dutta and Srinivasan were purportedly inspired by a chance encounter with Mungee, who spoke so passionately about her research that the filmmakers became determined to see it for themselves. In the most immediate sense, Nocturnes functions as a work of sensory transmission, capturing the remarkable sights and sounds of the remote montane forests of northeastern India during the few weeks each year when the moths emerge. This is old-school nature documentation at its finest, one that elegantly captures the eclectic beauty of the setting: gently fluttering moths resplendent in their myriad colors and patterns; morning mist shrouding the silhouettes of towering trees; a wild elephant bedding down in the undergrowth with a melodious sigh. Mungee’s more freewheeling reflections and composer Nainita Desai’s delicate, sparing score add some occasional texture to this footage, but in general Nocturnes asks that the viewer study and savor the wonders of this world in situ, just as a researcher might experience them.

The human, scientific perspective that undergirds the film’s images is essential to Nocturnes’ methodology, distinguishing it from the glossy, third-person omniscient view assumed in many nature documentaries. By adhering to the subjective sensations that greet Mungee and her fellow moth-counters – chiefly her first field assistant, Bicki, a seasonal worker of the local Bugun ethnicity – Nocturnes creates something much more immersive and impressive than yet another god’s-eye tale narrated by a Hollywood actor. Much like Werner Herzog’s discursive portrait of Antarctic researchers, Encounters at the End of the World (2007), Dutta and Srinivasan’s feature is fascinated with the down-to-earth reality of scientific fieldwork, although the latter’s approach is much narrower and more impressionistic.

There is something appealingly old school – one might say Darwinian – about Mungee’s methods, which involve long nights spent photographing the moths that land on gridded, illuminated swatches of fabric set up at discrete forest elevations. Later she will pore over these digital images, identifying and measuring individual insects. However, Nocturnes is foremost concerned with the experience of living in this environment for days and weeks at a time, embedded in its verdant embrace while also existing apart from it as an interloping observer. The film makes space for a humbling setback here and there, such as a rockfall across a mountain road that Mungee, Bicki, and their helpers are obliged to break up and remove by hand. However, Dutta and Srinivasan are focused on sensation rather than narrative, eliding the procedural minutiae and personality quirks that might have infatuated different filmmakers. The viewer doesn’t learn much about Mungee or Bicki, apart from some slantwise references to the lives they lead off screen. However, by the end of Nocturnes, the viewer will perhaps begin to understand why they are mesmerized by this forest and the diversity of life it supports.

Mungee’s voiceover touches on her study’s connection to climate change: As the world warms, she envisions a gradual migration of hawk-moth species up the mountain slopes, until there is nowhere left for the insects (or their predators) to go. Accordingly, the film contains a twinge of anxiety – for the moths, the forest, and the planet generally. This disquiet about the future lends an urgency to Mungee’s scientific endeavors, but Nocturnes is really a film about the timeless now, about how awe-inspiring and humbling the natural world can be. Reflecting on the 300-million-year history of moths and their persistence through five mass-extinction events, she notes: “They have lasted through this vastness of time. Humans are the newcomers.” Earnest but reserved, Mungree is not prone to the grandiosity of a celebrity science-communicator, and she quickly runs out of adjectives – astounding, overwhelming, spectacular, intimidating – when describing the subject of her studies. Eventually, both she and the filmmakers must allow the innumerable tiny, rustling wings to speak for themselves.