Pigeons in the Square

In more the than two dozen documentary shorts I have seen, Jean Painlevé is an elusive creature. We can often hear his voice speaking about some sea creature, cracking dark jokes and educating the audience about his interests. In this movie, however, he can be spotted a couple of times in a park in Paris, surrounded by youngsters like attendants, quizzing them on the subject of this movie.

It's about pigeons, their habits, their courtship rituals, their diseases and the 20-franc fine for feeding them. Like most of his movies, however, it is about more than the subject at hand; the preamble makes it clear that this movie is meant to transmit the techniques, habits and excitement of observing creatures. Science may be about observation and getting the details right, but the impulse to do so must arise from somewhere, and the subtext of this film, not particularly hidden, is that anyone can do it.

How often have we heard, particularly when we are young, that we would not understand or we're too young? You can do it! It's an important message and perhaps, after more than half a century of making these movies, perhaps his most important.