The Ark and the Deluge
THEATRICAL RELEASE JUNE 1993
François Bel spent
six years shooting
his final feature film all across the world.
Epic, poetic and lyrical, The Ark and the Deluge is a tremendous wildlife saga. Water – the giver of life and the subject of the film – plunges spectators into a surreal emerging world.
An ode to life and a wake-up call
Images from the film / 26”
The Ark and the Deluge is a naturalist fiction film centred around one of life’s most essential cornerstones: water.
‘In a way, humans are still animals. Their birthplace is a wild, untamed planet. While they may be self-sufficient, living with the comforts and undesirable consequences of technology, they remain an integral part of their environment. When we are physically or mentally connected to nature, we put a great many things into perspective.’
François Bel
François Bel’s final feature film introduced a new way of looking at our environment and raised awareness of its fragility.
The breathing of the oceans… Water – the great unifier – reveals all the splendour of certain landscapes and the peculiarity of animal behaviour.
Armed with dogged determination, an artistic eye and his engineering know-how, François Bel takes us on a journey from Antarctica to Alaska, from Africa to the Tierra del Fuego and Iceland, exploring and sharing an unknown world that guards the uniquely wonderful secret that is life.
Gabriel Yared, who composed the music for this film, brings us an extraordinarily lush symphony dedicated to the natural elements. Using pervasive yet subtle references to the film’s timeless subject matter, he conjures up large expanses of land, taking us upwards before plunging us into the depths.
‘We wanted to bring into focus the dangers of natural resource depletion, and to show how humans forgot where they came from, and how they’re creating a society in which they seem to be suffocating.’
‘These ideas are an alarm warning of danger – an alarm we are unwilling to hear.’
Images from the film / 41”
‘I just wanted to offer spectators my soul’s deepest feelings as fertile ground for growing their ideas, freely interpreting what they see, and learning to listen and look in a new way.
With the exception of a few introductory sentences, the film’s dialogue consists of sounds produced by nature and animals, which are perfectly complemented by Gabriel Yared’s music.’
François Bel
Video excerpt
39”
François Bel Interview - 1998 / About The Ark and the Deluge
