Product Description {First Prize, 1999 Munich Documentary Festival}{Planete Prize, 1998 Vues sur les Docs (France)}{1998 Nordic Documentary Award, Nordic Panorama (Sweden)}Before 'Winged Migration,' there was KESTREL'S EYE, the award-winning film that, unlike any other, plunges viewers into the world of nature, unobtrusively capturing the life of a family of kestrels (European falcons) who live in an old church tower above a small town in Sweden. Nominated for a Swedish Oscar and a multiple prize winner at documentary film festivals around the world, this feature documentary "captures reality with fidelity and intimacy that prompts old-fashioned wonder." (New York Times)Swedish filmmaker Mikael Kristersson patiently followed the kestrels' progress for several years with special techniques and hidden cameras that gave him intimate access to their secluded nest. With vivid cinematography, and filmed from a bird's eye view, KESTREL'S EYE enters the time and space of the kestrels to show how they hunt, feed and hatch their young. With only the real sounds of the birds and their surroundings as a soundtrack, we hear how the kestrels communicate with each other as they beg for food, learn to fly, or the mother receives a juicy mouse from her beau. Letting the birds' actions speak for themselves, their lives are clearly understood and felt, in contrast to the obscure movements of the humans seen distantly in the churchyard below. Review In what could be a textbook on how to construct a story without plot or dialogue, Kristersson pieces together a cohesive narrative about two animals' quest for survival and proliferation in an indifferent world. --VarietyA fascinating meditation set to the cooing and clicking of these extraordinary creatures as they share their field mice, ruffle their feathers, engage in fly-by lovemaking, warm their eggs, and overlook the comings and goings of homo sapiens in the churchyard below. --New York MagazineA triumph of ingenious cinematography and remarkable patience. You've never seen a movie quite like this! --Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
M**S
May not be for everyone
This is a very barebones approach for a nature film. There is no narration or music at all, simply the footage of the kestrels and their surroundings. There isn't even an FBI warning or introduction, the footage just abruptly starts. The content is neither good nor bad, it just is. It's a little bit like watching the footage that animal behaviorists use in their studies. Sometimes it can be a little boring, but if you really want to study falcon behavior then you might enjoy it.To give you an idea of what the footage is like, it goes something like this: You see a man walking around in the church graveyard. Then you see one of the kestrels sitting on the church watching him. You go back to watching the man walk around the graveyard. A person across the street gets into their car and drives away. You see one of the kestrels sitting on the church bobbing its head. You see a few children playing in their backyard nearby. You go back to seeing one of the kestrels up on the church vocalizing. You watch a group of people jog by the church. One of the kestrels flies off and you watch him fly around and hover until he catches a mouse. You go back to seeing his mate sitting on the church. You watch the female preen. The male returns and gives the mouse to her. The female eats it. One of the kestrels vocalizes. The female walks into their nest hole. The footage suddenly cuts from winter to spring. You see and hear a human marching band go by on the street. You watch a person being buried in the graveyard below. You see the male kestrel sitting outside of the nest. You watch a man blowing leaves in the graveyard below and then listen to him talk on the phone. You see the female kestrel sitting on a wire looking around. The male kestrel vocalizes... And on and on like that.Because the footage is so simplistic, it can move slowly sometimes. You definitely have to be in the right mood to watch it. The best part for me was watching the babies grow up. I was a little disappointed that they didn't show what happened to the babies. They didn't follow them at all after they fledged. The movie abruptly ends as soon as the babies take their first flight (which is just from the nest to a ledge a few feet away). It seems like a lot of the time that was spent early on in the movie showing nothing happening (ex: the adults sitting on a ledge looking around) could have been replaced with footage of what happened to the fledlings.This movie is definitely not for everyone. It's not bad exactly, but a lot of people may find it boring and anti-climatic. There is no real suspense or storyline, and the way the camera never stays on any one bird for very long makes it seem a little fragmented. Overall I think this movie is best suited for someone who wants to study kestrel behavior in detail. If you're not interested in scrutinizing every second of a kestrel's movements, then you should probably buy a different nature film. If, on the other hand, you ARE interested in seeing what a kestrel does all day long in the wild, then you'll enjoy this movie.
U**E
One of the best films I have ever seen - or felt
One of the best films I have ever seen - or felt. Apart from the birds, it gave me an at least temporary sense of human unimportance. Our rituals looked rather silly from bird's eye view.
A**R
Five Stars
aok
C**D
Magnificent documentary
Rarely have I enjoyed a film more than this one, though there is no one telling us what is happening. There is not silence, however, as you are treated to all the sounds of nature, including bird song and the noises of people going about their business. The Swedish landscape is spectacular, and this pair of kestrels is just beautiful to watch. I learned many things about kestrels that I did not know before, and the most astonishing for me was watching them doing their flying in place, like their tiny cousins, the hummingbirds.I have now watched Kestrel's Eye three times. And I will watch it more times yet. This photographer ties what is happening with the birds above with what is happening with the humans below in a way that makes me feel that what we are viewing is also God's view of His creation.
R**X
A Birdseye view into the homes of Norwegian Hawks - really very interesting - R.D.A.
Kestrels eye
D**B
Five Stars
An excellent, very interesting look at kestrels.
A**E
Five Stars
Beautiful, quiet look at life in this interesting neighborhood.
B**K
A gem
This film is a gentle and visually elegant meditation that simultaneously follows the activities of a family of kestrels and their view of a lovingly cared-for cemetery below their roost. The pace is slow and the only soundtrack is the ambient sounds, but there is a spare and moving beauty to this film that makes it utterly rewarding for the patient viewer. The enormous attention that the kestrel parents bestow on their brood of chicks is mirrored by the Zen-like care with which the caretakers endlessly rake and prune the cemetery plots, bringing the patterns and rituals of both nature and humans into extraordinary focus. The way that human activity is relegated to a Lilliputian backdrop to the lives of the birds is refreshing. There are also some very amusing moments as the kestrel chicks go through their "brat pack" phase, and as a bonus, my cats got a big kick out of watching!
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