I have seen many animals—in photographs, in film, in VR, in taxidermy, in drawings, in paintings, printed on my shirts and carved in wood on shelves, in dreams, in life. Each time, I have loved them, all of them. I still look at them for a long time, I think about them, I ask myself questions and, sometimes, I study them a little. All of them: the pigeons on the terrace in Syracuse. The rats at sunset in Paris. The iguana of Brazzaville. The gorilla of Lésio-Louna. The slug of Siusi. The donkey of Gatineau. The squirrel of Montreal. Wherever I am, I observe them. For a long time. And I always thank them for letting me look at them. The gaze creates an encounter: I find myself in the presence of the animal.

Some people, while looking, capture moving images and share them in order to share a collective joy. Sometimes, it is only a few seconds of animal presence within the frame, after long hours of filming and, even more, of waiting in concealment. Often obtained using singular audiovisual devices, indispensable allies. Renouer avec le vivant by Jérémy Frey and Yann Arthus-Bertrand (2023), written in collaboration with Rémi Dupouy, introduces us to amateur—better yet, passionate—naturalists, and to their own corner of the world in France (Vosges, Jura, Camargue…), which they traverse in order to observe and share, through images, the animals that inhabit it and thus the “fantastic story of biodiversity.” What this allows, beyond aesthetic pleasure, is knowledge, and through it—one hopes—a better collaboration among humans in order to respect all living beings. An idea that has run through the history of cinema in a marginal but essential way: the image, through spectacle, can be useful and educational.
 

Viva Paci
Professor and Co-Director of the labdoc
Université du Québec à Montréal