Jean Painlevé Movies

Jean Painleve short about an experimental canine surgery.

Mathusalem (or Methuselah) is a 1922 play by Ivan Goll, considered a precursor of the theater of the absurd. The 1927 run of the play saw five...

This documentary about the life and work of filmmaker Jean Painlevé was originally presented in eight parts on French television. It was...

Title cards introduce images we watch without narration; they are displays of shape and color. François de Roubaix's electronic music...

An enthusiastic grandfather sits with children in a Parisian park talking about pigeons. First. their physical appearance—eye, wings and tail,...

A vagabond arrives in a Flemish village. He's looking for his childhood love, but the villagers believe he has the evil eye.

After a comic introduction, we look closely at a shrimp. Eyes on stilts, color patterns, pinchered walking feet, a rostrum. We watch shrimp eat using...

In mud flats along the coast of Brittany we watch acera, small ball-shaped mollusks that are about two inches in diameter. They rest in mud; then, in...

At a marine biology station, a clump of algae reveals polyps, stomachs with limbs, limbs with buds, buds with poison cells. This animal reproduces by...

Jean Painlevé short film examining population explosion and decline.

A series of 5 choreographed sketches starring Jacqueline Clédon and Michèle Nadal.

In a freshwater pond, it's "eat or be eaten." A dragonfly larva eats a midge; a water beetle larva eats a damselfly larva. Snail larvae grow. A...

Painlevé’s first film on animal behavior, focusing on the Hermit Crab. On this film we see the Hermit Crab trying to find shelter.

Jean Painlevé is interested here, with the help of Eli Lotar, in crabs and shrimps. He is particularly interested in detailing their anatomy...