All That Breathes (2022) (Janus Contemporaries, Criterion Collection)

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Shaunak Sen’s All That Breathes reinvents the environmental documentary by portraying, in incisive yet lyrical fashion, the reciprocal influence of animals and humans. For more than a year, Sen followed New Delhi brothers Mohammad Saud and Nadeem Shehzad as they rescued birds of prey from the increasingly destructive effects of urban pollution. While charting the siblings’ daily struggles and successes, he also documented their poetic reflections on humankind’s relationship to the environment, the interaction of wildlife with the city, and India’s explosions of anti-Muslim violence. Suffused with beauteous, sobering, and contemplative imagery, All That Breathes ponders the delicate bonds of interconnectivity among humans and between species.