All That Breathes

Shaunak Sen’s Sundance-winning documentary about a bird rescue centre in New Delhi comes close to offering a philosophy of life.

The title of Shaunak Sen’s film is deeply significant. That's because the phrase ‘All That Breathes’ is a pointer to the fact that this documentary comes close to being a unique example of the genre. My reason for making this claim is due to this being a work that is at heart mystical. There may be other documentaries of which that can be said but I can't myself recall seeing one. Although I regard the success of this aspect as being the film’s key achievement, it is in fact the case that what we have on screen here could well have a mass appeal to animal lovers and for that reason it could attract audiences who might be less than wholly enthusiastic about a film so expressive of mysticism. 

For his second feature, Sen concentrates on two Muslim brothers living in New Delhi who have for some years devoted themselves to running a workshop providing animal welfare. These two, Nadeem Shehzad and Mohammad Saud, deal with undernourished and wounded birds, a very necessary service given that pollution in the region is so extreme that a hundred birds a day fall out of the sky. In particular the brothers and their chief assistant, Salik Rehman, take a special interest in the black kites that make their home in Delhi. Their work is clearly a labour of love and takes place in a humble setting which, providing a home for both brothers and their families, also contains a soap dispensing facility. To keep going they need extra funds and find themselves having to rely initially on what they might obtain locally since applications for foreign funding are denied to them. Later, however, a story about their endeavours would be published in the New York Times and that would help regarding funding from abroad.

The story told here could have been presented in a conventional way with a commentary giving details about the set-up and its problems and additional footage providing further information about these brothers and their relatives. Instead, Sen chooses to build on a view that is quoted as being a belief of the men's late mother, namely that one shouldn't differentiate between all that breathe, a viewpoint that extends to trees and vegetation and to both the natural and the supernatural. The film quite consciously seeks to affirm that all human life is one and that recognition of kinship is at the heart of how we should live.

In pursuit of this theme, Sen seeks out images that show the range of life forms to be found in New Delhi. Thus, we observe not only the birds but rats, monkeys, dogs, centipedes and more. Three photographers were involved and they play a crucial role in capturing the concept of a world which was created as a unity. It is a considerable achievement albeit that this emphasis does leave us with a film that might usefully have given us more detail about the history of the workshop and supplied fuller background information about the political travails afflicting Muslims. There are references to the Citizen (Amendment) Act of 2019 and to violence in the streets with houses being burnt, but this is not really elaborated on. Essentially we are invited to see the conflict as being contrary to that view of life as kinship. There is too a certain vagueness as to how we should respond to the film’s closing moments: Nadeem, more restless than Saud, has been given the opportunity to study in America with International Bird Rescue in order to improve his skills, but what might have been portrayed in very positive terms is left somewhat open instead. But, even if one questions some aspects of this film, there is never any doubt about its humanity and its ability to involve us as it encourages us to see life, all life, through the eyes of these two brothers.

MANSEL STIMPSON

Featuring  Nadeem Shehzad, Mohammad Saud, Salik Rehman.

Dir Shaunak Sen, Pro Aman Mann, Shaunak Sen and Teddy Leifer, Ph Ben Bernhard, Riju Das and Saumyananda Sahi, Ed Charlotte Munch Bengtsen, Music Roger Goula.

Kiterabbit Films/Rise Films/HHMI Tangled Bank Studios-Dogwoof Releasing.
97 mins. UK/India/USA. 2022. UK Rel: 14 October 2022. US Rel: 21 October 2022. Cert. 12A.