Few colours: the white of the location, the two-coloured coat of the penguins, the blue of the sky and the range of greys of the ice storms. Few characters: the penguins rarely interact with other animals, dramatic fights against predators are almost non existent, man and his works are (obviously) absent. Yet the film, which came out in Italy in 2005, had an extraordinary success and the Italian commentary of a much-loved actor such as Fiorello was just a bonus to a work based on the fascination of a real and hard story to be told without concessions. It won the bet!
This and other similar works have much-deserved success. They are based on a similar inspiration, similar stylistic coherence, similar purposes. In all cases, there’s a film in the film. Few minutes of straight filming, directed with the eye and the spirit of the observant naturalist, are often the reward for days laying in wait, monitoring, complex expedients aimed at the same time at avoiding interference with the natural environment and at obtaining good results from a technical point of view. The general interest for this genre could be due to something that often happens in the field of environmental education and biology of conservation, in which I work. Amongst people working in this field there’s a story about a primary school in Rome: when the children were asked to name some wild animals, most of them mentioned the gnu, not considering species that are more familiar to our environment, such as hedgehogs and foxes. It’s a surprising answer at first, but it is probably not so surprising considering that there is a new urban generation of children who have never seen a firefly (they have just come back to our parks and gardens after their population had gone down because of pollution) and have long been familiar with the life cycles of exotic animals through TV documentaries.
The aims of nature documentaries are praiseworthy, they educate, inform, transmit values, and sometimes amuse or initiate reflection. They do not allow concessions, no happy ending or, better, the happy ending is implied, sometimes, in the plot, because, if you can record the full life cycle of an animal or of a herd or pack, you can show the success of evolution, the triumph on the elements, the fulfilment of a life adventure. Nonetheless, it is impossible to hide from the audience images and concepts at the basis of science, the certain death of a wounded or abandoned cub, the cruel (but never unbalanced) predatory fight, the destruction of environments because of natural or human causes.
So we may wonder how effective and how appropriate it is to use such documentaries in cinematherapy. Quite aside from the educational value of the nature film/documentary, because it shows correctly the laws of nature, when and how is it possible to use it in cinematherapy, considering that (as you can see in the column on the side) the choice of the show is left to the subject/patient?
Our personal answer as an enthusiast of the subject is that this genre should be used to enhance the personal resources of the individual. For example, in the film March of the Penguins the Darwinian concept of the survival of the fittest (and not the strongest!) is correctly shown and this can help understand how important and necessary it is to push one’s boundaries, to get to know one’s environment and its threats, to learn a new discipline of oneself, to be flexible in one’s goals and to free oneself of fears.
(Translation by E. Bianchi, UK)
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento