Jean Painlevé sits with children in a Parisian park talking about pigeons. First their physical appearance (eye, wings and tail, and color) and their varieties.
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La rétrospective Jean Painlevé s'achève en beauté. Rendre des pigeons intéressants, ce n'était vraiment pas gagné ! Nous avons droit à des flots d'informations sur leur plumage, leur bec, leur pattes, leur vol, leur atterrissage, leur douteuse technique de drague... Le maître explique à des enfants comment imiter leur démarche, il commente une mêlée de pigeons comme un match de rugby... Quel boute-en-train, ce Jean !
Such a beautiful work. Lovely framed. Exquisite print dust and noise crackle breathing even thru the pixels of that HD screen I have used to watch it.
Human kind in all of his futility I've watched as well.
When viewing those pigeons lifting and landing, memoirs of E.J.Marey films came into motion, slowly, gentle like the poetry within the documentalist observateur.
As always Painlevé presents rather unremarkable subject, and manages to surprise us with his unique compilation of a document, storytelling, poetry. This time however, I was slightly disappointed. It seems to be aimed towards children, but as it progresses, and especially towards the end, it just floods with tiny details about pigeon flight physics. I felt it wasn't as smooth and relaxing as Painlevé's earlier work.