Every Little Thing
Essentially a documentary about hummingbirds, Sally Aitken’s quite exceptional film is a memorable thing.
Image courtesy of Dogwoof Releasing.
The outstanding feature of this memorable film is its intimacy. Made by Sally Aitken, Every Little Thing is a film about a resident of Los Angeles well known for treating injured hummingbirds. Her name is Terry Masear and she is on screen virtually all the time. Nevertheless, and despite the fact that we are drawn in by her deeply caring yet unsentimental personality, it is the birds that she tends which steal the film. Terry has been looking after hummingbirds for eighteen years and in 2016 wrote a book about them, Fastest Things On Wings. But to have her now on film with her birds is surely even more valuable and Aitken’s documentary makes use of three outstanding photographers, Nathan Barlow, Dan Freene and Ann Johnson Prum who has a separate credit for wildlife photography.
Seeing Every Little Thing is to be reminded of at least two earlier documentaries. The wonderful 2002 film All That Breathes made by Shaunak Sen showed equal care being applied to Black Kites but, set in Delhi, was also about the state of the city and thus a rather different piece. Similarly, Judy Irving’s The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill (2003) was an engaging work which took account of its location, San Francisco. But Sarah Aitken’s approach is to hone in on Terry Masear herself and her work with the birds which combines flight training and physical therapy. We occasionally glimpse some of the people who bring in birds, but it is really the hummingbirds themselves - all given names - who share the screen with Terry Masear. We follow the progress that they make and, while Terry sometimes talks to camera, much of the time she talks to the birds. She is giving them warmth and affection and since that is so apparent her manner avoids being twee. Equally notable is the way in which she makes a professional assessment when a new bird arrives: it’s very forthright (she describes one of them as having a 10 to 20 per cent chance of surviving but makes it a rule to keep such a view secret in order to avoid unduly distressing the person who has brought the bird in).
The fact that the birds have names helps us to recognise how each one does in the course of the film but there is no direct story line as such developing during the period covered. However, Every Little Thing gains an extra sense of shape by gradually revealing Terry Masear’s own life story although this is done not without a drawback since her past history emerges in snatches and only eventually take shape and there is initially a sense of holding back on the detail that it really demands. That’s hardly a major flaw, though, but I do find rather more questionable the romanticism found in certain aspect of this piece. That extends to Caitlin Yeo’s music score and the frequent inclusion of shots of flowers using time-lapse photography. Nevertheless, pride of place for misjudgment goes to the opening scene in the film which features the sound of a brash TV or radio programme, mixes in some of those flower shots and for once makes it sound cutesy when Terry addresses the bird which is a passenger in her car. A song is incorporated too!
But fortunately everything improves substantially even if some of those doubtful elements are not eliminated. None of the faults matter, however, because by the time the film comes to an end the audience have been made to identify with the birds and to share Terry’s sense that birds are as valuable as human beings and experience trauma in ways that link the two. I can’t image anybody leaving the cinema without feeling that what this film has enabled them to share in is something quite exceptional.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Featuring Terry Masear and wild friends.
Dir Sally Aitken, Pro Bettina Dalton, Oli Harbottle and Anna Godas, Screenplay Sally Aitken, Ph Nathan Barlow, Dan Freene and Ann Johnson Prum, Ed Tania Nehme, Music Caitlin Yeo.
Wildbear Entertainment/Dogwoof/HHMI Tangled Bank Studios-Dogwoof Releasing.
93 mins. Australia. 2024. UK Rel: 18 October 2024. Cert. 12.
