‘Microcosmos’ looks at world beneath out feet> Cinematic essay of insect realm, which won 1996 Cannes prize, a work of both art and science

“Microcosmos,” directed by Claude Nuridsany and Marie Perennou. Running time: 75 minutes. Rated G. Nightly, Nov. 4-6, Railroad Square Cinema, Waterville.

In common meadows, sidewalk cracks and backyard gardens, another world thrives with life, a world so richly complex and absolutely necessary to our survival.

To peer into this world is a feast for the optic nerve. In it we find all of the drama, dark comedy and violence we have come to expect from Hollywood. But in this unique film, a French documentary by Claude Nuridsany and Marie Perennou, the cast is composed of insects.

Whether lowering their cameras to the activity found within a French countryside, or lifting their lenses to the lone bee soaring sideways through a summer sky, Nuridsany and Perennou have produced in “Microcosmos” a beautiful, cinematic essay on entomology that is as much a work of art as it is a work of science.

Fifteen years of research, two years of designing special camera technology, three years of filming and six months of editing went into the production of this film, which won the 1996 grand prize for technical achievement at Cannes. Watching it is a wonder.

Although there is only the briefest of narration, “Microcosmos” uses music and amplified sound effects to dramatize all that we have seen, yet never truly seen. It is a film that moves you with the beauty of the six-legged, thrills you with the unremitting attacks of the carnivorous, and inspires you to look more closely at all the rich life that makes up Mother Earth.

“Microcosmos” is first a celebration of life, but it is also about life’s unrelenting struggle. In it, we see parades of furry caterpillars crossing hot, barren terrain, armies of ants building colonies nearly flawless in design, grasshoppers leaping to sure and sudden death in sticky spider webs, and the romance of two slugs, whose wet lovemaking, set to an operatic score, is so passionate, it is not to be believed.

But near film’s end we realize that “Microcosmos” is more than simply a celebration of those lives we tend to casually trample upon. Indeed, its brilliance rests in its ability to showcase insects as lower forms of ourselves. When the seven-dotted ladybugs find one another and mate, when the dung beetle triumphs over physics, when the spider captures its dinner, or when a colony of ants sets off to war, there we are with them, up on the screen, watching a microcosm of our own world play out before our eyes.

This film is important not only because it changes the way we think, but also because it helps us to see the larger picture of an infinitely smaller world. And when you think about that, when you consider how this film and these insects have affected you, what we have here is a feat of filmmaking that cannot go unnoticed.

Grade: A

Video of the Week

“Batman & Robin,” directed by Joel Schumacher, written by Akiva Goldsman. Running time: 126 minutes. Rated PG-13.

Unlike its predecessors, this latest installment in the Batman franchise, recently released on video, is not intended for adults — and thus would probably bore them should they make the mistake of renting it. It is a loud, expensive, gaudy film made for older children that will thrill them with its neverending stream of brilliant, colorful effects, two bizarre new villains and a new heroine — Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl.

This time out, Gotham City — which never has been as richly complex nor as imaginatively evoked as it is here — is under attack by the twin evils of Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman), each of whom, following the series’ tradition, became superhuman after experiencing scientific mishaps in their respective labs.

Schwarzenegger’s Freeze is a chilled, lumbering pile of nuts and bolts who survives only by keeping his body at zero degrees, and whose mission in life is to bring back the cryogenically frozen body of his beloved wife. Thurman’s Poison Ivy is a vivacious sexpot who wants to rid the world of animals so her genetically engineered plants can sink their roots deep in Gotham’s soil — and seethe with rotten life.

In a series that has become less about Batman and more about Gotham’s villains, Freeze and Ivy predictably emerge as the film’s more interesting characters. As Batman, George Clooney is unfortunately a humorless, vacant bore (as is Silverstone’s Batgirl), but that means nothing to director Schumacher. What matters to him is thrilling his young audiences with fantastic, unpredictable panache and wild fits of action — which he does quite smashingly with a $150 million budget.

Grade: B-