The Velvet Queen

The photographer Vincent Munier takes the writer Sylvain Tesson onto the Tibetan plateau. The animal they are after is the snow leopard, which very few people have seen and which has almost never been filmed. At four thousand metres and thirty below they hide and wait for days. Most days they see nothing. Wild yak, antelope, wolves and bears pass. The snow leopard watches and does not appear. Marie Amiguet and Vincent Munier direct. The idea is the waiting itself. The narrative builds no story of discovery; hiding, being cold and nothing happening are the actual material. Sylvain Tesson is a well known writer in France and described the same journey in a book, which won the Renaudot prize there. The photography is extraordinary and almost entirely made with long lenses; the animals are never approached and nothing is interfered with. The music is by Warren Ellis, with Nick Cave singing on some pieces. The limit is Tesson's text. The narration slides at times into a poetic register and breaks the silence of the image, which is the most criticised element. It was named best documentary at the César awards in 2022. Who it is for: viewers who like nature documentary and slow films. Who it is not for: nothing happens, the narration is too literary, and the pace is deliberately very slow.