Animal Attraction by Isabella Rossellini - Essay Example

The director makes use of an unusual costume and speech style. The costume design is most likely an attempt to catch and hold the viewer's attention, but the actual effect of the costumes is to give the documentary a slightly cheap, unfinished, and overall “cheesy” feel. The narrator's speech pattern, even ignoring her natural accent, is stilted, unnatural, and uncomfortable, making the watcher very aware of the presence of the camera in the room with the speaker. However, as this is a documentary about insects, who obviously do not normally speak at all, it is possible that such awareness of the presence of a camera in the room with the narrator is inevitable.

The narrator does not shy away from using scientifically correct terms for the parts of the insects' genitalia, helping to return the video to a more clinical and scientific feeling than the costumes and acting style would otherwise provide to this documentary. The use of cardboard cut-outs to play the role of the Queen bee in the mating scene avoids any level of eroticism in the scene. This and the use of clinical language helps to remind the viewer that what they are watching is a documentary, not a joke or a spoof short film as it can at times feel. There is much that could be done to make this film feel more professional and scientific, even if the purpose of the film is to reach a general audience. This film seems to lack a professional touch that would make it believable and credible to the average movie-goer.

However, despite any other possible failings of her films, Rossellini definitely manages to be different from most insect and animal life documentaries. It is certainly more interesting and more entertaining than most films I have seen in the documentary genre. Strange as this movie may seem to the viewer, it does succeed in making the honey bee mating practices unforgettable. I will never now be able to remove the image of the actor portraying the male bee, bleeding to death from his groin as the cardboard Queen flies away with a large stick, representing the male's severed penis, jammed through "her" body. Nor will I be able to forget the image of the cubes of red Jell-o, representing the royal jelly, being offered to a small baby wrapped in a blanket, representing the larval Queen. While the biological informational content of the entire video is rather low, it succeeds in its fundamental purpose: providing an audience made up of non-scientifically educated adults with basic knowledge of bees and their life cycle.

Another documentary in the “Green Porno” series, on praying mantis mating habits, uses a similar costume design style but also added in some interesting color and light effects to focus the viewer's attention on the narrator's voice instead of the actual speaker. This video features a model of a praying mantis built of paper or cardboard that resembles an origami sculpture. The general feel of this video is one of simplicity, rather than the previous documentary's cheap feel, though the cheesy effect remains to a certain extent.
The video is extremely short and fast, probably to imitate the mating habits of the subject species in question. It exemplifies the life span of the male praying mantis, that he exists only to copulate with the female and to feed her so she will bear his young. The video, his life, and the time period of the actual mating all exist only briefly.
Again, the level of scientific knowledge imparted by this video is low but functional.

The documentaries are quick and memorable, accessible to the general public, and fundamentally correct in what they teach.
Both of these end with the male subject dying in bloody agony shortly after the act of copulation, which does cause me to wonder a bit about the intentions of the producer. A wider examination of her work is necessary before any such conclusions can be drawn, however. Read More