Dr Birdman

A Thai cardiologist flips through fifteen books of nature sketches and notes, lovingly drawn and painted over thirty years. This is a premise to an absorbing and amusing documentary on the life of Rungsrit Kanjanavanit or ‘Dr Mong’, a wellknown Thai conservationist, bird-watcher and nature artist. Aside from a talent for story-telling as he relates sublime and comical experiences, and his obviously sincere and profound love for this sacred planet, the beauty of his accomplished and charming pictures accompanied by his spoton rendering of a whole flock of bird songs, cries and noises, like an animated film. But there is sadness beneath all the sweetness and light, since in the final analysis this is a life or death issue; the extinction of species, the survival of nature and therefore ourselves, as seen through the lens of love and beauty.