I watched this film on streaming Netflix the other day and found it really beautiful. The Sound of Insects is a movie based on a Japanese novel; in turn, that novel is based on a diary of a man who starved himself to death.
The movie is a slow series of images, some atmospheric music, and a narrator reading passages from the diary. The voice alternates between detached, analytical of what it is to starve to death (it doesn't go the way he thought he would) and ruminating and poetic- what it means to live/die, the existance of god, how much a self needs a body.
I found it all beautiful and intense. It left me thinking about a variety of extreme situations- Diana Nyad swimming to Cuba, Tibetan monks immolating themselves in squares, explorers who died trapped by ice. I've just finished putting another round of edits and adjustments on Boyishly (currently called Monstrum but we'll leave Boyishly as the title here right now) and have been wondering what I would write next. I love the idea of starting with these kinds of situations and seeing where that takes me.
The Village Voice called this film the anti-127 Hours and I see their point- calm and muted where Boyle's film is speed and flash. I found Sound of Insects meditative and watchable, a great find off the instant list.
