Last update:
Paprika editions allow us to see or review The Snow Panthera magnificent documentary by Marie Amiguet and Vincent Munier, both a human adventure and a spiritual quest at 5000 meters above sea level.
Several reasons can encourage us to see or review The Snow Pantherthe documentary by Marie Amiguet and Vincent Munier.
First of all, we have a real adventure film in a splendid natural landscape. For 90 minutes, the documentary invites us to follow animal photographer Vincent Munier and writer-traveler Sylvain Tesson in the high plateaux of Tibet, at more than 5000 meters above sea level, in search of the famous snow leopard which gives its movie title. We are invited to a real expedition, on a desert land and to say the least inhospitable.
The Snow Panther has all the attributes of an adventure film: the splendor of the landscapes, the exploit of two men lost in a mineral immensity, in search of a marvelous animal. Whether The Snow Panther were limited to that, it would already be a very beautiful film.
experience of immensity
But Marie Amiguet and Vincent Munier’s documentary goes further. It is a real spiritual adventure. An expedition where man is put back in his place of being fragile within a gigantic nature. The plans show us two tiny protagonists within the immensity, made even smaller by the remoteness of all civilization. The splendid images show us a very mineral world, a windswept desert world, a wild world, left to packs of wolves attacking a herd. A world that will impose its rhythm on men.
A world that is shown as the antithesis of the modern Western world: Vincent Munier admits that the return to the world of men is always complicated as these quests are enchanted parentheses outside civilization, serene and spiritual encounters with pristine nature. Going to desert places, places that are uninhabited because they are uninhabitable, has become a need for him, an escape, an escape from a world where man is destroying nature. It is indeed the quest for an inverse relationship to nature that is shown here, a world where man cannot claim to be “master” of nature (and therefore to destroy it), but to to be a frail, tiny guest, at the mercy of immensity. A healthy awareness of our smallness.
Change perspective
Sylvain Tesson, meanwhile, is confronted with his contradictions, he the traveler who admits not being able to land and who, there, has to learn the lookout, for hours, without moving, without speaking, to wait for the hypothetical coming from an animal, whatever it is. He will confess:
“I had learned that patience was a supreme virtue, the most elegant and the most forgotten: it helped to love the world”
Because Tesson, throughout the documentary, also defines himself as “indifferent to everything”, and he will finally learn to pay attention to everything around him. It is indeed to share a contemplative experience that we are summoned here.
A mystical quest
“The Panther is the Grail”
What is taking shape little by little is indeed a mystical quest whose object would be this snow leopard. The panther is an animal that we constantly talk about without seeing it, whose presence constantly prowls around, like a guardian of the place, like a totem animal. Searching for the animal in the immensity, begging for whole days, contemplating nature for hours, all this seems to open the door to a mysterious world, preserved from man, a world that can only be reached by price of an almost inhuman journey.
“The beast is a key. She opens a door. Behind: the incommunicable »
The Snow Pantherit is all this, an experience as much aesthetic as spiritual, in which the images of Marie Amiguet, the photographs of Vincent Munier, the words of Sylvain Tesson and the music of Warren Ellis and Nick Cave form the perfect alliance.
See as well
Program complements
The editor of The Snow Panther has chosen many short supplements, and it pays off. So we have eight program supplements, ranging in length from 3 to 12 minutes, and they fit perfectly with the documentary. Some are contemplative dives with the animals that inhabit the Tibetan highlands. Others share with us the words of Sylvain Tesson or the atmosphere of the shoot. And the whole thing ends with a superb clip of the song by Warren Ellis and Nick cave We are not alonea clip composed of shots from the film.
To all this set we must also add a booklet composed of interviews with the two directors of the film, Marie Amiguet and Vincent Munier, as well as texts written by Sylvain Tesson, by the assistant director or by their Tibetan guide. At the end of the booklet are also photos of some animals encountered during the expedition of the two protagonists.
In short, each complement is essential to prolong the experience of this documentary.
DVD Features:
92 minutes
Languages: French stereo 2.0
French surround 5.1
French audio description 2.0
subtitles:
partial French
French EMS
English
Program complements
_ Snows and presences (5 minutes)
_ On the trail of the snow leopard (12 minutes)
_ S. Tesson, about the hide (4 minutes)
_ Shooting snapshots (10 minutes)
_ The Himalayan lynx (5 minutes)
_ Mists and silhouettes (5 minutes)
_ the attack of the wolves (6 minutes)
_ We are not alone, the clip (3 minutes)
_ Booklet
The Spiritual Quest of The Snow Panther on DVD and Blu-ray | LeMagduCine