Modern Goose
2022 · 22m · Canada
Directed by Karsten Wall
Genres: documentary, essay film
Tones: contemplative, tender, whimsical
Geese navigating by Earth's magnetic field across land, air, and water are observed in daily life, revealing continuity between ancient instincts and the contemporary world.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Wall's doing the most boring thing possible—nature doc—and somehow makes it feel like a philosophical prank; the whimsy is almost hostile in how it refuses to let you settle into expected beats.
A genuinely considered essay film that inherits the patient observation lineage of Brakhage and Herzog while earning its whimsy through formal restraint; the architecture of how geese become a metaphor for continuity is executed with real rigor.
The singular move here is the tonal register—tender rather than majestic, which reframes the entire geese-as-metaphor into something intimate and vulnerable; that one decision makes a 22-minute nature observation feel like it's about something urgent.