Metro Australia — January 2018

http://www.metromagazine.com.au | © ATOM | Metro Magazine 195• 77

with either a revhead’s approval or an intellectualist’s dis
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from on high, gazing down at the balletic curve of their move
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less), scrawled like hieroglyphs in the sand. At night, once the
men have tended to their engines by the light of their mobile
phones, the trucks are still shot from afar. In the nothing
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trucks gathered on the edge of a rise evokes birds gathering
atop a hill. And there’s an even more direct parallel between
birds and technology when some men play with a drone,
piloting a mechanical ‘bird’ over the sands.
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speed and motor speed are contrasted: when the cheetah is
inside the car – or the peregrine falcons, the private jet – these
creatures, the fastest in the world, inhabit the technology that
has outpaced them. But, if the falcons are cooped up for much
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"G@KKDMFD, eventually, arrives at its climax: the falcon becomes
the hero of the narrative, and the pigeon, its luckless foil.
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leap into the competition. First, we witness the sights and
sounds of preparation. The sheikhs take their seats on row
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polloi gather in their trucks, ready to chase the action across
the sands. The announcer, when not introducing contestants,
repeats the emergency contact number for any spectators who
might get lost in the desert, and reminds the men driving to be
careful, for ‘there are also children in the cars’. One of the birds
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its beak buffed with a motorised polisher, the rough edges of
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Ancarani takes in the scene: the men watching, the cars mill
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in silence, there’s a sudden run of words: the commentator
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this delightful turn of phrase is an accurate translation).
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camera strapped to the bird of prey’s hood. The images are
twitchy, uneasy, moving fast – a contrast to the static com
positions that show the men in their leisure. These few early
shots have looked at other falcons, at men sitting on car
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tournament. And the results are some of the most beautiful
images in cinema history: the bird ascending to godly height,
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tracks below like crop circles, dust rising heavenward from
the ridges of dunes. The bright blue skies around us, we soar
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There’s no score, just evocative sound design: distant inter
jections of engines and wheels the only things encroaching
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The falcon swoops, the pigeon retreats – these two gladi

ators in an elemental battle, the results as thrilling as a chariot

race. From on high, the falcon dives and the distant ground

suddenly thrusts up close, the expanse of monochromatic

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surface. As the falcon presses in, the furious beating of the

pigeon’s wings grows louder. This chase engenders a kind

of bloodlust in the audience, a yearning for our hero to catch

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climaxes with the falconry equivalent of a money shot: that

moment when the falcon takes down the pigeon, delivers the

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hit the ground, the hunter looking down at its feet, squashing

its victim, the pigeon now a mess of torn feathers and blood.

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this visual eventually lost in a disorienting kaleidoscope of

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by the ambient sounds of the desert.

This is ‘the challenge’ of the title: falcon versus pigeon,

a battle as old as time itself. But it’s not the sole battle, the

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ism, community and individuality, repression and freedom,

tradition and modernity, physicality and technology, animal

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broadly universal, Ancarani’s ‘experimental’ documentary

a widely accessible work of clear theme and photographic

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seen to be believed.

Anthony Carew is a Melbourne-based critic. m

Endnotes

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(^12) ibid.