On a certain level, the whole thing is about animals. Human culture is self-defined by its capacity to remember itself, to instigate order, tradition, custom, pattern. But the animal is present-conscious only, and its groupings are instinctive— memory is important to an animal only as an impression, not as an exactitude. I think Marker is pointing at the idea that what is most essentially human in a being is not best served by any society.
—amongst other things.
-“Life at the two extremes of survival” refers both to the third world and the first world and to animal and human survival.
-Cats and Owls are Marker’s favorite animals, and in absence of Marker himself as character/figure on the screen, those animals stand in for his presence and his mark.
-Emus are a typical favorite animal, along with octopi, for surrealists. Marker is a broadly-read and very theoretical filmmaker who cannot resist putting in such things into this very deep film. Just as he uses his friend Tarkovsky’s Zone to describe the digital Zone created in the movie.
-The giraffe film is found footage. Pay attention to what is said directly before it. It deals with dealing with death.
-The dogs were Marker’s, and they vacationed with him.
-I don’t remember the zebras, actually. Fancy that.
-The museum of animal copulation is explained well enough by itself.
-Animal figures have deep semiotic relationships to human civilization, both symbolically and as contrast/comparisons. They function both as a numinous force and a relative to human experience. I am not all that well versed in such theory, but I’d be willing to bet Marker was.
Helpful?
—PolarisDiB
Thanks so much guys. Very helpful.
I forgot all about the connection to surrealist film-making: almost like Painlevé or something!
About the zebras, they were in the animal-copulation sequence: the two zebras traumatized me!
Nat
The motif of animals throughout the movie fascinated me: emus, giraffes, cats, zebras, and so on. Would someone be so kind as to proffer their opinion about what Marker was driving at? At one point, the disembodied voice talks about how humans are animal in nature as well.