"One shouldn't differentiate between All That Breathes"

The camera expands the scope of storytelling

It's so often not useful to use the plot of a movie to determine how interesting or enjoyable it is going to be. Or, at least, the content is only one piece of what makes it interesting, and at this point I have seen enough to know that any topic or plot synopsis of a film that might sound mundane or boring to me can be delivered in a way that is captivating and intriguing. Ebert's line of (paraphrasing) "It's not what a movie is about, but how it is about it" speaks to perspective, process, and approach rather than subject.

But this can often be less so with documentaries. They tend to be more fact-focused, exploring a chain of events around a specific thing happening in the world. If you're interested in learning about climate change, you'll watch a climate change documentary. If you're not, you probably won't. This is not always the case, though, and many beautiful documentaries have used other forms to explore their subject matter. Some have used scripted scenes to recreate true events, like The Thin Blue Line or Man on Wire. Others take away narrative all together and create a purely visual or aural experience, like The Man With the Movie Camera or the mesmerizing exercise in patience, Leviathan.

The recently Oscar-nominated documentary, All That Breathes, could have been a 40-minute documentary, taking the more traditionally direct approach (none the less worthwhile) like the beautiful documentary nominated this year in the shorts category, The Elephant Whisperers. That film, about an Indian couple that become caretakers to baby elephants on an elephant preserve, tells the story of how the humans and elephants came into each others' lives and developed a special bond. It's touching and enlightening and inspiring.

There are aspects of that in All That Breathes. At face value, it is the story of some brothers (also in India, as it happens) who, as children, felt for the kite birds that they noticed were getting hurt in their city and started making efforts to rescue them. This grew to the point that kite rescue, recovery, and release is their main gig. They even have a side business that supports their efforts. They notice the increased injury and difficulty the kites face in the city ecosystem of New Delhi. It documents their struggles to gain resources, turning to international grant-making entities to seek funding, and pursuing more education to be better skilled at treating and rescuing the birds. They operate out of their home but plan to build a hospital.

This is a touching and inspirational story, for certain, but the filmmaker's eye takes its time roving  the urban landscape that surrounds the brothers and the kites. The opening scene slow-pans over an empty, unlit, trash-covered lot teeming with rats scrounging for food. It is slow and purposeful, finding the life in a an area that might normally be overlooked, allowing the viewer time to overcome a sense of disgust and develop an appreciation for life and its survival.

The "beauty in the mundane" attitude is often taken here, supplemented by the observations of the brothers. They accept the city as a home to many types of life which the camera takes the time show us: cows wandering the streets, beautiful owls, the kites, and many other birds. But we also are offered an opportunity to appreciate the rats, insects, and even waterborne parasites that exist on the periphery of our attention. The skyward shots surveying birds against pure blue free of any landmark or reference point are as visually arresting as a bucket full of squirming microbial organisms.

There is much to be learned from the charity of this family. They sacrifice time for relaxation, attending to current events and political discourse (a backdrop very present in their community that the filmmaker points out several times), and even family, in order to meet the demand of the many birds needing help that come their way. They are living examples of providing care for "even the least of these" that many of us find admirable but rarely have the inclination or energy to act on. One of the brothers goes to significant personal expense to attend school in the US so he can be better prepared to treat his feathered patients.

But the film expands, using this specific situation to explore a larger question around nature and life. It shows how life naturally always seeks a way to survive, and so reflects on the beauty of evolution and adaptation. One brother observes, "Nature will always find a way to sort waste." This is all amidst little hints of a backdrop of social and political unrest and natural upheaval in the form of extreme rains and flooding. They continue their rescue, unperturbed by these detractions because the lives of the birds continue on, as well.

From the start we see that duty, compassion, and curiosity drive both the men and the filmmakers. They have an appreciation for life and seek to act where they see it threatened. At the core of their motivation, we learn, is something the men's late mother taught them: "One shouldn't differentiate between all that breathes." Whether in the work with injured kites, or in the subject of the camera, the film is successfully attempting to do just that, allowing the viewer to consider the life that surrounds them in their own world.