Whispers In The Woods

It’s ironic that as the natural world shrinks before our eyes, and species become extinct and endangered with grim rapidity, the nature documentary genre is enjoying a golden age.

The Planet Earth and Blue Planet series have become jewels in the BBC’s crown. Most of the streaming services have produced equally jaw-dropping efforts. And renowned filmmakers as diverse as Ken Burns (American Buffalo) and Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man, Encounters At The End Of The World) have found inspiration in the natural world and man’s relationship with it.

Many of the feature film entries in the genre are as much about the creators’ relationship with their subjects as the subjects themselves. And the subjects are often not the usual majestic creatures in remote locations, but something more quirky and relatable, as in Shaunak Sen’s All That Breathes, which documented two brothers’ attempts to save injured black kites in the smog-filled New Delhi cityscape. Whispers In The Woods has both these elements, as well as a hypnotic, mystical quality all its own.

Vincent Munier, a renowned wildlife photographer who co-directed The Velvet Queen, a Cesar Award-winning account of a trek to film snow leopards in Tibet, has followed it up with an even more personal story which combines breathtaking footage with an intimate portrait of a family whose closeness to nature spans the generations.

It opens with a stunning image of spectral mist swathing the forests of the Vosges mountains in eastern France, before focusing on a young boy and his grandfather as night falls on a primeval, Tolkienesque landscape. To a soundtrack of low growls and other night sounds they quietly observe the world around them before returning to a candlelit cabin.

The old man is Vincent’s father Michel, a naturalist and writer, and the boy is Vincent’s son Simon. As Michel reminisces about his lifelong passion for the woodland and its creatures, it’s clear Simon has inherited the family’s love of the natural world and a desire to experience it. His common refrain is, “I want more stories”.

Michel obliges with the tale of his “totem bird”, the capercaillie. The largest member of the grouse family, it’s renowned for its beautiful plumage, its distinctive mating call – and its extreme rarity. Even for a seasoned countryman in the heart of rural France, encounters have been fleeting but magical. He resolves to try again, with Simon as his companion and Vincent filming the quest.

Much of the film is an absorbing, enchanting portrait of a man so in tune with the rhythms of the woods that he seems part of its ecosystem. The trio’s painstaking, minimally invasive approach yields a succession of images which, even in a genre where excellence is now standard, are simply sublime. A fox seeming to dissolve in the mist; deer crossing a river smoothly as galleons, bathed in golden light; a lynx padding back for second helpings of a chamois corpse, suddenly seen in extreme close-up.

It’s a feast for the eyes. And the ears, as composer Warren Ellis (a multi-instrumentalist in Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, who also scored The Velvet Queen) blends ambient noise with a haunting, ethereal score and a glorious cover version of Fairport Convention’s Who Knows Where The Time Goes, which chimes with the film’s themes of knowledge and experience passed through the generations, and the impact of the modern world on a seemingly unchanging landscape.

For it soon becomes apparent that what appears to be a perfectly preserved environment has been radically altered even in Michel’s lifetime. The sound of aircraft overhead disturbs the birdsong and human activities and “climate upheaval” have wrought changes which threaten the capercaillie’s precarious existence. As Michel ruefully observes: “It’s been here 10,000 years and I’ve watched it die out in less than 50.”

Eventually, it’s decided that the best chance for Simon to see one is for the trio to venture even further afield, to Norway. And even here, a successful sighting is far from guaranteed…

Their determination to carry on regardless is heart-warming, but with a touch of the quixotic about it; rather than a leviathan of the seas, or a terrifyingly deadly apex predator, the object of the quest is a medium-sized bird that simply potters about the forest foraging. But Michel’s love of its elusive presence, its rich plumage and its strange call is genuine and contagious.

Occasionally the pace is a little too stately, and there are perhaps one too many lingering shots of mist-wreathed trees. But there’s a warmth and humour to the trio’s relationship that gives a human dimension to their journey. “It would be cool if it stopped raining,” Vincent wryly observes during one particularly patience-testing wait for the animals to turn up. All the species they encounter are given in the “cast list” at the end. Which only seems right and proper. As all the human participants would no doubt agree, they are the real stars of a stunningly beautiful and captivating show.

Reviewed on: 11 Nov 2026