Animals

Philibert’s deceptively simple documentary on the preparations for the re-opening of Paris Natural History Museum (after 20 years or so of decay) opens with a typically surreal shot of a packed trailer of stuffed animals, that is at once a little comic, pathetic and bizarrely confrontational. This sets the tone as Philibert, in his dignifying fashion, follows the demolition work and rebuilding of the grand building, the selection, stitching, stuffing, painting and cleaning of the exhibits. A combination of sometimes startling portraits of the stuffed menagerie – notably of a range of wide-eyed monkeys – and the use of Philippe Hersault’s playful music give proceedings an amusingly interrogative edge, which gently mocks and questions the meaning and nature of such endeavours.