In this batch of capsule reviews from the Seattle International FIlm Festival, I’ve chosen to focus on four documentaries – two that explore the Asian American experience in different ways, and two that are more science/nature oriented. There’s a lot to get into, but before we dive in, I would be remiss not to mention that the Filipino film, The Missing also screened at SIFF, which I’ve written about previously, so be sure to check out my previous review of that film. Check out Part 1 for reviews of Food Roots and Admissions Granted.
Final Rating 3/5
When I was in third grade and had just moved to the States from the Philippines, during recess my first group of friends and I would run around the playground pretending that we had traveled through time and befriended dinosaurs. It was mostly an excuse for us to spout off increasingly complicated dinosaur names and facts (for the record, my favorite is the Ankylosaurus). Truly, loving dinosaurs has to be a universal experience, and this crowdfunded documentary from the Pinto father/son duo asks the question – Why?
Why Dinosaurs?, directed by James and Tony Pinto, and filmed over the course of three and a half years featuring over 70 interviews across the world with various dinosaur enthusiasts, we are taken on an odyssey on all the ways dinosaurs have come into our lives and why capture our imagination.
We get a brief history of the field of palaeontology itself from the United Kingdom, as well as of how dinosaurs were portrayed in movies. This of course includes the impact Jurassic Park has had not only for the portrayal of dinosaurs, but also on the field of palaeontology itself. From there we explore various behind the scenes of the field, from what it’s like to actually be on a dig site to the years of work that goes into preparing fossils for display in a museum.
If there is anything to be said about this film, it’s how enthusiastic it is about its subject matter. How this manifests in some sections that perhaps feel like they were left in because the editors couldn’t bear to let those interviews go, even if they would have helped the pacing.
The sheer number of interviewees in this documentary does make it a bit hard to really connect with any one of them, but then again, that is perhaps the point of showing just how many different kinds of people love dinosaurs and continue to love them as adults.
The closest thing we have to a throughline or protagonist here is the father/son duo, which they attempt to tie into the ending as the son goes off to college to be a palaeontologist and the dad appreciates dinosaurs more by osmosis (though I’m not convinced this emotional beat is completely earned).
Likewise, the attempt to sneak in discussion about climate change toward the end feels somewhat out of nowhere. Still, even if it feels slightly overstuffed and a bit long, Why Dinosaurs? is a fun watch if you ever loved dinosaurs at any point in your life, and science teachers everywhere should look to add this to their curriculum. At the very least, I’m now looking into traveling to Alberta and Colorado to visit some dinosaur sites.
Final Rating 4/5
Last year here in New York, there was a minor celebrity roaming around Central Park. Flaco was a Eurasian eagle-owl who had escaped the Central Park Zoo after 12 years of captivity; after proving he was able to hunt for himself, zoo officials allowed him to roam where he developed a small following amongst birders (including my wife).
He became a regular tourist attraction, though some local birders were concerned about the crowds disturbing his nocturnal cycle. In the end, Flaco sadly was found dead after colliding into a building near the park; harmful levels of rat poison were also found in his system.
While it may be presumptuous to draw a parallel between Flaco and Grizzly 399, I couldn’t help but be reminded of my own local animal celebrity when watching the documentary 399: Queen of the Tetons directed by Elizabeth Leiter.
Chronicling Teton National Park’s most famous resident’s 2020-2022 litter of four cubs, the documentary not only portrays 399’s natural beauty and majesty, but also dives into the complex interconnected relationship between bear conservation, eco-tourism, climate change, and growing human populations.
The core conflict presented is one of too much success. After grizzly bears were placed on the endangered species list, they were able to recover to over seven times their numbers. In 399’s case in particular, she has learned that staying in sight of human roads allows her cubs to have a higher than average survival rate as it deters their natural predators. It seems like a win-win as 399 and her cubs get protection and tourists get a great view of nature like nowhere else.
Since 399 and her cubs have become habituated to humans for safety, that leads to an increase of human-grizzly conflict, with ranchers and hunters wanting nothing more than to delist grizzlies from the endangered species list to control the bear population. And those learned behaviors of being near human roads could become a liability instead of protection.
While we don’t get a resolution one way or the other of a firm solution of what should be done, it’s clear from our primary human subjects that hunting the bears isn’t one they are willing to accept.
Most featured are famed wildlife photographer Thomas Mangelsen and locals Greg Balvin and Sandy Mell, who have been watching 399 for over 15 years, and have seen how her fanbase has grown. And while there is the paradox that publicizing 399 to the extent she has been may be feeding into her habituation of humans, it also functions as a way for her to serve as a symbol of nature’s beauty that must be preserved.
Perhaps even more, she serves as a mirror of how we as humans relate to nature – whether she stands in as a representative of single mothers everywhere, or as a reluctant celebrity, or as the embodiment of nature that humans must learn to co-exist with – 399 has something to teach all of us. Honestly, I kind of understand why women would choose the bear over man.
Why Dinosaurs? and 399: Queen of the Tetons were seen during the 2024 Seattle International Film Festival. Thank you to the festival for screeners.
