Description
The most striking aspect of this documentary is the lack of the human voice. Not one word is uttered in relation to the subject of the film, Kestrel’s Eye. The only human voices heard are filtered up from street level to a kestrel nest in the old church tower in a small Swedish town. The entire film is shot from a bird’s eye view.
When we watch the kestrels (European falcons) who “star” in this documentary, we are seeing them up close in their own habitat. It would seem that director Mikael Kristersson hid several cameras in and around the old steeple, for he manages to capture the birds in their most natural states. The film depicts the kestrel family through an entire year. We see them hunting, nesting, hatching and emerging.
The intimate nest-cam tracks the progress of six eggs changing into tiny kestrel hatchlings and those hatchlings into young adult birds. We also get good close-ups of the hunting kestrels in flight, a nice accomplishment by the camerapersons. What we don’t get are a lot of facts about what the kestrels are doing. If you don’t know that kestrels see certain rodent leavings in prismatic color, this film won’t tell you that.
