A hunter in a remote and idyllic forest stumbles on a make-shift tent fashioned from sheets of plastic and containing the mummified remains of a corpse. A detailed journal found on site reveals the man committed suicide by self-imposed starvation. Who was this man? Why did he kill himself in such a manner? Inspired by this true event and by the novella Until I Am a Mummy by Shimada Masahiko, Insects sensuously evokes the mysterious man’s last days. Director Peter Liechti, known for using experimental and impressionistic elements in his documentaries, layers lush images and sounds from the forest with sudden cacophonous flashes from an anonymous urban setting to draw us into the mummy’s experience. Driving the story is narration-affectingly performed by Canadian filmmaker Peter Mettler-from the mummy’s journal entries. Insects is a hypnotic, mesmerizing affirmation of life from one man’s radical renunciation of it. Shannon Abel.

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