‘The Shepherd And The Bear’: IDFA Review

Dir: Max Keegan. France/UK/USA. 2024. 101mins.

Rewilding could also be a topic of curiosity for metropolis dwellers and greenwash politicians, however individuals who stay and work in areas that border on the wilderness typically take a special view. That’s one of many subtexts of first-time British characteristic director Max Keegan’s lyrical, visually and aurally ravishing documentary, which balances its sympathy for mountain people with an ecological imaginative and prescient that’s wordlessly embedded in each shot. The movie set in a distant space of the Pyrenees, the place the killing in 2004 of the final native bear has prompted French and Spanish authorities to reintroduce the species – a lot to the anger of the native shepherding group.

 Balances its sympathy for mountain people with an ecological imaginative and prescient

Providing solely the briefest zoom-lens glimpse of a mom bear along with her two cubs, it is a nature story that progressively reveals itself to be a human nature story. Taking part in at IDFA after its shock premiere on the Camden Worldwide Movie Competition in Maine, it  has an excellent probability of discovering both a status screener berth or taking the theatrical route. A wistful, melancholy string, woodwind and piano soundtrack by composer Amine Bouhafa (Timbuktu, 4 Daughters) contributes to the common resonance of this story.

Very similar to Honeyland or The Truffle Hunters The Shepherd And The Bear is an efficient instance of a movie that embeds itself patiently with its topics. Nothing within the movie tells us that Keegan moved to France for 3 years to make it – apart from the bond of belief established right here with topics who’re clearly so used to the digital camera that it’d as effectively not be there.

Immersion can have its draw back too, nonetheless, and there’s a small one right here that will trouble some viewers much more than the graphic footage of mauled sheep. Completely embedded within the historic rural communities of the Ariège uplands of southwestern France, the movie appears to have organically settled on two storylines that by no means totally mesh: that of an ageing shepherd with a bear situation, and a minor strand about an beginner photographer who’s obsessive about nature. Principally, this looks like a courageous selection, one which tells us there are not any straightforward solutions to the ‘farmers versus ecologists’ debate. Simply sometimes, it looks like fence-sitting.

Transient on-screen captions fill us on three battle factors: the EU-backed reintroduction of bears to the Pyrenees, the truth that rural communities have grazed their animals in these excessive mountain pastures for hundreds of years, and the shortage of younger individuals who see shepherding as a viable profession. Wrinkled, taciturn 63-year-old shepherd Yves inhabits the mountains like a second pores and skin, comfortable along with his flock, his sheepdogs and, surprisingly, with the intense younger shepherdess, Lisa, who’s spending the summer season studying the ropes of the commerce.

Information stories, scenes of protest rallies and a dramatic bear launch (seen partly from the webcam mounted on the cage) introduce a thriller ingredient which interprets, in Yves’ distant mountain area, right into a tense wait as mist rolls in and sheep, filmed from above, stream in rivulets throughout the impervious slopes.

At first we wrestle to put frequent cutaways to a seemingly unrelated story – that of Cyril, a youngster whose farmer mom is among the many most vocal of the native anti-bear foyer., and who spends as a lot time as he can up within the mountains wearing camouflage gear, photographing nature. It progressively turns into clear that he’s seeking the holy grail – a bear sighting.

What’s lacking, as city corridor conferences between locals and environmental authorities get heated, and bear-hunt posses are organised, is any thought of the historic context. If the final native bear was solely hunted down in 2004, then the ancestors of those offended shepherds should have coexisted with the issue for hundreds of years. In reality, Ariège villages corresponding to Oust had been as soon as celebrated for his or her ‘montreurs d’ours’ or ‘bear displayers’ who would seize bear cubs – after first killing the mom – and prepare them to do circus tips. Nonetheless, it’s in all probability a tribute to Keegan’s resolutely in-the-present documentary that it leaves us sufficient in its topic to wish to do our personal analysis.