Language of Birds

Did you know that emus bellow? It's a kind of rolling, gravelly noise, sometimes with a slightly high-pitched tone. A sound reminiscent of the language of velociraptors, the one heard in Jurassic Park III, when Professor Grant, fascinated and overwhelmed, first hears the song from the sinus cavity of the long-necked prehistoric biped. I discovered a similar vocabulary during the eclipse of April 8, when I was in the Zone of Totality with some of these great birds.

Unfortunately, there are no emus in Language of Birds, but miraculously, you can hear a blackcap warbler. This sequence is even more remarkable given that the science-fiction/documentary narrative is set in a post-apocalyptic future where ornithology has in some ways become a branch of paleontology. It is in this context that the humans in Bullot's film patiently and ardently strive to listen, imitate, sing, shout, vocalize, transpose, and ultimately translate the language of birds, beings that have disappeared since the so-called sixth extinction.

Separated from the birds by the speed of time, as the narrator asserts, some will go as far as breaking the sound barrier, while others will work with illustrations, lines, signs, symbols, onomatopoeias, or even with musical scores to grasp the grammar of this language. Thus emerges a plethora of attempts at restitution and restoration to give back to the ears what has been lost. In a truly brilliant manner, this polyphony of experiences proves analogous to Bullot's staging, deftly weaving together the various levels of mise en abyme, all under a tone that is solemn, comical, and warm simultaneously. In all simplicity arises a lively, sensitive, and ingenious work, inviting us to sharpen our auditory acuity to better grasp the climate urgency and the animal languages whose words are slowly dissipating.

Matthew Wolkow
Filmmaker and curious by profession