Un animal, des animaux

The comment “c’est très dixneuvième” (“very nineteenth century”), made in the film after about ten almost silent minutes, may not exactly point to burning topicality and an explosive issue. On the contrary: there is probably quite some dust on it. Likewise, terms such as “museum” and “natural history” may cause a reflex to escape, comparable to that of antelopes and zebras when faced with approaching lions.
In UN ANIMAL, DES ANIMAUX, the three species stand peacefully next to each other, just like in the proverbial Garden of Eden. We take pleasure in watching the film more and more closely and with growing fascination. With his cinematic means, Philibert gives new and unexpected life to “still life”: to objects and plant and animal specimens of any conceivable kind. A “Noah’s Ark”, which is over a hundred years old, helps him in his endeavour: the natural history museum in Paris, which underwent costly and extensive restoration in the eighties of the last century, from the foundations to the last beetle specimen, as it were. Philibert is almost always everywhere with his camera and his microphone. He refrains from comments, but he casts a careful look behind the scenes and into the innermost parts of the museum. This is why this story of living things becomes very lively indeed.
Visions du Réel Nyon