The Sound of Insects

Directed by Peter Liecthi

Release Year: 2008
Running time: 88
Country: Switzerland
Language: English
Genres: Documentary
Subjects:
$22.46 - Classroom Rights
MSRP: $29.95
$349.00 - With PPR
$499.00 - With DSL
$499.00 - With DSL and PPR
MSRP: $599.00
Screening Request
Directed by: Peter Liecthi
Crew: Peter Mettler, Alexander Tschernek, Norbert Moslang

In a remote wintry forest, a hunter discovers the mummified corpse of a 40-year-old man. A diary is found near the body, detailing the man’s everyday thoughts as he commits suicide through self-imposed starvation. Based on an incredible true story, and adapted from the novella “Until I am a Mummy“ by Shimada Masahiko, Peter Liecthi’s THE SOUND OF INSECTS is a stunning investigation into the mystery of the man’s enigmatic self-destructive motivations. Taking on his point-of-view, the film presents the notebook entries as stream-of-consciousness musings on the world around him as his body dissipates, an attempt to piece together the causes of his disillusionment. With luminous cinematography of the vaulting trees that surround his tented tomb, and of hallucinated memories of the cities and people he left behind, THE SOUND OF INSECTS is a hypnotic and transcendent meditation on how the renunciation of life paradoxically reveals its beauty.

Reviews

"Surprisingly not macabre, this fictionalized record of self-aggrandizement through self-destruction reminds one of Derek Jarman's Blue in its epistolary delivery and its displacement of meaning to that which is never really shown." Read the full review - Slant Magazine

"...a poetic exploration of life... evocative, haunting." - Indiewire

"Hypnotic." - Peter Debruge, VARIETY

 

Awards

WINNER of the European Film Academy Documentary 2009 award "for its skillful exploration of minimalistic means to create an extraordinary visual story between life and death."

OFFICIAL SELECTION: Hot Docs 2009

WINNER: Zurich Film Award 2009

OFFICIAL SELECTION: Silverdocs Film Festival 2009

 

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