‘Nocturnes’ Review: A Hypnotic Documentary About Moths Unfolds to Reveal Climate Change Concerns As Well

variety.com:

Siddhant Adlakha The nature documentary is inherently preservationist, but Anirban Dutta and Anupama Srinivasan’s “Nocturnes” offers environmental persuasions not through verbal arguments, or even an aesthetic appreciation.

Rather, its meditative, hyper-fixated approach to process — as seen through the eyes of seasoned lepidopterists — proves so hypnotic that any appeals or augments the movie makes are deeply felt before they’re intellectually understood.

The pieces snap into place eventually (which is to say, the “why” of studying moths and their patterns), but the “how” is foregrounded so forcefully and poetically throughout that viewers will likely come to care about these creatures, and this field of study, well before they understand the very real and pressing reasons they should.

In northeastern India, bordering Bhutan, scientist Mansi and her indigenous assistant Bicki (belonging to the local Bugun tribe) partake in the nightly ritual of suspending a cloth sheet and illuminating it with bright lights in the middle of the forest.