“Nocturnes” quietly watches hawk moths in the Eastern Himalayas

In the Eastern Himalayas, near the border between India and Bhutan, a fascinating scientific study is underway, meticulously documented in "Nocturnes." In the film's introduction, Indian directors Anirban Dutta and Anupama Srinivasan observe and listen to the enchanting forest sounds: birds, elephants, and thousands of moths.

Those flying wonders, specifically the hawk moths, are the reason Mansi, her main collaborator Bicki, and a few other assistants spend days in the mountainous terrain shining blue lights on a white screen mounted on a metal frame. This attracts thousands of the area's diverse moth population, insects that feed on flower nectar after dark. Drawn to the blue light (as they are in the U.S.), they flutter and flap, buzz and bump, thump and thud, wings pulsating, hovering over and landing on the fabric.

With over 106,000 plus moth species, Mansi chooses to focus exclusively on the large hawk moth. She sets out to discover whether mountain altitude correlates to variations in hawk moths' size. With minimal dialogue, she and her crew go about their work, in fog and thunderstorms, rain and cloudy conditions. They'll take hundreds of photographs, all for scientific analysis later in the lab.

Though seldom noted, as stated in the film, "Moths have been on earth for almost 300 million years," before dinosaurs ruled their world. Sharing the biological Order Lepidoptera with butterflies, they vastly outnumber their more celebrated relatives with over a thousand species of hawk moth in the family Sphingidae. Immersing viewers quietly for a mesmerizing eight-three minutes, "Nocturnes" encourages greater, deep appreciation of this too-often overlooked, but invaluable, small, beautiful insect.

Winner of the World Cinema Documentary at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, with English subtitles, "Nocturnes" screens at Webster University’s Winifred Moore auditorium Friday, December 13, through Sunday, December 15, at 7:00 each evening. For more information, you may visit the film series website at: Webster.edu/filmseries.