Jean Painlevé Movies

The one-celled long and slender diatom, up close: discovered in 1703 with the invention of the microscope. We observe them magnified 10,000 times:...

Title cards introduce images we watch without narration; they are displays of shape and color. François de Roubaix's electronic music...

Underwater photography, magnified close-ups, and film through microscope present the sea urchin, a complex creature. We see their mouth and five...

An early example of ultra-realism, this movie contrasts the quiet, bucolic life in the outskirts of Paris with the harsh, gory conditions inside the...

Perrault's fairy tale presented in claymation with choral voices. Bluebeard goes courting, all six of his wives having died. He arrives at the house...

Titles in French and English help us know what we're seeing. In all waters, daphnia abound. They are crustaceans about 2 ml long, with one eye that...

When a wanderer arrives in a village in the East Flanders countryside, strange events begin to unfold. The villagers, unsettled by his presence, come...

An octopus slithers over objects on land—a doll, a skull—then oozes along the shore into the sea. It secretes its ink. The camera follows...

This documentary about the life and work of filmmaker Jean Painlevé was originally presented in eight parts on French television. It was...

Examines the sea horse, the only fish that swims upright. We watch it use its prehensile tail to wrap around plants and other sea horses. A frontal...

A close-up look at sand urchins and rock urchins. At the seashore, a man digs up a sand urchin. We look closely. He sets it back in the sand, and it...

At a marine biology station, a clump of algae reveals polyps, stomachs with limbs, limbs with buds, buds with poison cells. This animal reproduces by...

In a freshwater pond, it's "eat or be eaten." A dragonfly larva eats a midge; a water beetle larva eats a damselfly larva. Snail larvae grow. A...

Two kinds of starfish, the brittle and the feather. The brittle star moves its arms alone, without the aid of suckers. Underneath is a single...

An octopus slithers into a narrow crack near the shore; we see its eye up close. It feeds on a crab. In spring it's time to mate. A male grabs a...

Jean Painlevé short film examining population explosion and decline.

After a comic introduction, we look closely at a shrimp. Eyes on stilts, color patterns, pinchered walking feet, a rostrum. We watch shrimp eat using...

Jean Painleve short about an experimental canine surgery.