All That Breathes (2022)

There is the text of this movie, and then there is the subtext. The movie opens with a scene in a New Dehli garbage heap that is crawling with rats. Many other wildlife species also feature – but in particular the black kite, the bird that dots the Delhi skies and stalks its landfill sites – but this isn’t a nature documentary. Instead, the subject is brothers Nadeem and Saud, who, through dedicating their lives to the care and healing of these majestic raptors who are often injured, and who have developed an understanding of the city ecosystem that cannot be put into words. It has to be seen. The slow moving camera shots capture so much that is beautiful, unexpected and profound, in and around the brothers’ makeshift, basement bird sanctuary, that it seems some of it must have been set up or scripted.The movie is never cutesy or sentimental. The daily tasks involved in kite conservation prompt Nadeem and Saud to musings on the human condition that follow the animist example set by their late mother. It is from her outlook on the interconnectedness of all living things that the film takes its title: “One shouldn’t differentiate between all that breathes.” Which brings us to the subtext, which is the caste system in India, and the true outsiders, the Muslims. There is a backdrop of extreme secatrian violence that occurs in Nadeem and Saud's neighborhood during the filming of this where the neighborhood is burned and dozens are injured or killed. It is quite a contrast, these healers of birds who are hunted because of their religion.