This week in a Soho cinema, five minutes of history was made. The world’s largest conservation organisation, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and Europe’s largest cinema group, Odeon, collaborated to re-instate the short film before the ‘main event’. With a plastic glass of Organic Prosecco, I was there at the premiere of ‘Astonish Me’ written by Stephen Poliakoff and directed by Charles Sturridge.
Actors, film crew, make-up artists, technicians all worked gratis to create this little gem that opens with a wide-eyed schoolboy in London’s Natural History Museum, staring in awe at the life-size model of the blue whale. Then, like Charlie in the chocolate factory, the boy is given the last ticket to a secret room deep beneath the museum and taken on a visual journey through a collection of a few of the phenomenal 15,000 new species discovered each year: a peep show of wonders from a ‘colossal’ squid filmed on a mobile phone – to the world’s largest insect. “Hurry,” urges Bill Nighy to the boy. In WWF’s celebratory 50th year, the message is clear: time is running out.
The ironic setting of the Natural History Museum, home of so many extinct species, including the infamous dodo, raises an age-old dilemma: the battle between conservationists and collectors.
It reminded me of a moment in childhood when, the boy next door and I watched a large stag beetle amble along the garden path. After 10 minutes a heated argument broke out. I was happy to see it go on its way, to be fascinated, but content to live and let live. He wanted to study it, own it; collect it. So the jam jar had holes punched in the lid and a few old lettuce leaves stuffed inside for fodder. The next day the beetle was dead.
And that is the bitter truth about the discovery of new species, not everyone wants to leave them alone and let them be. One of the peephole portholes in the film opens onto nothing – a species waiting yet to be discovered, the giant bear in Bhutan, the legendary ‘big foot’ – the Yeti. The boy’s eyes open in wonder, his imagination fired. Afterwards, there is talk of camera crews capturing the elusive animal. I find myself hoping the Bhutan government will remain protective, because once rare things are discovered, they feel more at risk.
From Amazon tribes adorned with the feathers of rare birds, to women wearing snow leopard coats, to beautiful butterflies pinned in glass cases, there are always those who prefer hunting to husbandry.
Let’s hope this little film encourages the next generation to understand wild places need to stay wild, that there is pleasure to be had seeing living creatures through another’s lens. For, even in the name of science and research, too many species, still, are driven towards extinction by the desire to collect rather than conserve.
