Il était une forêt (2013) - full transcript

My name is Francis Hall?.

I've spent my life in forests,

watching trees be born,
grow and die.

As I couldn't see them growing,

I presumed they were immobile.

Because I couldn't hear them,

I imagined they were silent.

Over time.

I discovered
they were prodigiously alive.

When I first became a bolnnist,
I never imagined

that the great tropical forests
would vanish before my eyes



in barely 50 Year?'-.

They were so huge...

Millions of years ago, we were born
in the highest branches of the canopy

but we have forgotten that.

Before it's too late, I would like

to share this lifetime journey with you.

Tell you about my great passion,

the story of the trees
of the great tropical forests.

ONCE UPON A FOREST

I have visited
all the world's forests.

I have walked on the canopy.

I have explored miles of undergrowth.

At all times,

I was amazed
by the great trees' ability



to live without moving.

How many times
have these wooden beings

challenged my own intelligence?

To live... without moving.

They have invented
another way of being alive,

almost imperceptible.

The mysterious universe of plant genius.

In the tropical primary forest,

I have seen our world's
greatest beauties and riches.

Billions of plants, billions of animals,

all mutually indispensable,
intimately connected,

sometimes so close
that they end up blending.

I have seen men seize ancient trees
in just days.

In no time at all,
one can destroy, take, collect

and chop them down.

Yet hew many centuries
are needed to rebuild?

How can the process be reversed?

This feeling of helplessness
fills me with anger

and sadness.

Since the dawn of time,

plants have given us
the air that we breathe.

Must they vanish
for us to remember that?

Who can recreate life?

Life alone.

It's a matter of time.

The great trees that lived here
have sown a multitude of seeds,

season after season, just in case.

The shade of the undergrowth acted
like a sleeping spell on them.

They will now mend
the mutilated forest.

Light invites them
to begin the story anew.

The forest will outlive us.
It has the power of rebirth.

But only if men leave it in peace

for more than seven centuries.

This is where
the tale of a rebirth begins.

These trees are pioneers.

They grow rapidly. They are all alike.

In a few days, they sprout.

In a few months,
they shelter the ground with their leaves.

Water, air and sun

enter the pioneers' leaves.

Chlorophyll transforms them.

A huge being rises up.

A tree!

The miracle of photosynthesis.

In their rush towards the sun,

the pioneers cannot create defences

to fight the herbivores
that attack their first leaves.

And when its damaged leaves
cannot capture the light,

the tree dies, deprived of energy.

To repel attacks, certain pioneers
call animals to the rescue.

When Cecropia grows a new leaf,

things that look just like ant eggs
appear at its base.

The result is instant.

The ants open small doors
created by the tree

along its stem.

The ants make themselves at home.

They bore openings between each level.

The insects soon occupy Cocropia
mror its full height.

Cecropia can grow in peace.

Its tenants ensure its defence.

50 years
after the first seeds germinate,

the pioneers reach maturity.

They won't live any longer.

Born at the same time,

they die together.

The brevity of their existence
is inscribed in their genes.

The minute fauna hidden in the ground

turns this forest of dead wood

into a rich, loose humus.

This is the unsettling world
of the deoomposers.

They digest everything
that falls to the ground

to return it to the cycle of life.

The secondary forest

replaces the primary one.

Its trees sprouted
in the pioneers' shade.

They are nourished
by their fallen wood.

Thus begins the second stage
in the forests reconstruction.

It will lake several centuries

to put back together the huge puzzle

wiped out by deforestation.

Light, once again,
organises the layout of the undergrowth.

The countless leaves, like solar cells,

the branches
that raise the leaves to the sun,

the big trunks that lift the treetops
to the sky...

Being a tree means excelling
in the art of slanding, balanced.

As the branches spread,
the base of the trunk grows thicker,

strengthening the giant's foundation.

The underground world of trees

is as vast and important
as the visible part.

Roots don't: really act as anchors.

They are above all water collectors.

They work with strange filaments,
fungi,

secret but key actors
in the life of the forest.

Water is vital for trees.

The fungi help the reels to collect it

by spreading their minute tentacles
beneath the surface.

In return, the tree shares the energy
from its aerial parts with them.

After one hundred years,

the secondary forest
is still like an empty shell.

Over five centuries,

it will host more and more
living creatures

and a rich and varied plant life

that will connect with each other.

The interaction begins on every level
of the undergrowth,

from the infinitely small
to the infinitely large.

Wnes spread before the undergrowth
is cast into shadow.

I find these plants phenomenal.

They don't tire themselves
making huge, sedentary trunks.

Others do that for them.

Discreet on the ground,

they follow the shade of a tree's trunk.

Having found a base,

they climb up to the sky
to gorge on the sun.

The philodendron vine fascinates me.

It is camou?aged by the bark

near the ground,
within reach of predators' jaws.

A few feet higher up,
it becomes exuberant,

as if it finally felt safe.

How did this plant acquire
such a subtle strategy?

That mystery is beyond me.

I'm particularly fond
of the passion vine's story.

You know this plant.

It bears the delicious passion fruit.

Let's digress with this vine
via the great evolutionary laboratory.

By changing the timescale,
we shall see how the forest creates

new species of passion vine.

In the forest,
the passion vine has a single enemy,

the Heliooonius butter?y caterpillars

that have devoured its leaves
for generations.

One day, during a mutation,

a passion vine became highly toxic.

Rid of its predators,

this new species of vine
began to prosper.

Until a new species of caterpillar
appeared,

immune to the vine's poison.

The butter?y became toxic
for its predators.

In all impunity, this new Heliooonius

started devastating passion vines.

Other species of vine then appeared

changing the shape of their leaves
to fool the butter?ies.

The trick worked perfectly

until the butter?y found a ?ower
whose pollen was so rich

it was able to live much longer,

long enough to learn to recognise
the passion wine's disguised leaves.

A new passion vine appeared.

It produced fake eggs

to make the butter?y believe
the place was already occupied.

I'll stop there
but, in this game of to and fro,

45 species of Heliooonius butter?ies

and 150 species of passion vines

appeared in just a few decades.

And there are millions of species

that come to life in the same way.

These countless individual stories

contribute to the history of the forest.

The yearS P955-

The secondary forest
continues to grow.

Its trees are now around 130 feet tall.

From the ground up,

they offer a host of dwellings

to countless creatures seeking
new areas to oolonise.

Deforestation made many species ?ee.

They return over time.

The leaf eater

attracts the ?esh eater.

The food chain gradually forms anew.

Some new arrivals play a key role
in the foresfs rebirth.

From distant lands,

they bring the seeds of trees
that didn't survive destruction.

Through such twists of fate,

the forest recovers
some of its gems

like the moabi, the most beautiful
of the great tropical trees.

This seed contains the promise
of a 220-foot giant.

The first seconds

of a creature that will live
more than 1,000 years.

The secondary foreslfs renewal
occurs through spectacular phenomena

but also countless tiny events,

repeated millions of times.

The ?ourishing of the tall trees' tops

sets the rhythm for the plants
and animals living below.

Wherever there's a patch of light,

there's a leaf to catch it.

And wherever there's a leaf,
there's someone to covet it.

If we were to weigh
the foresfs animals,

the ants in their entirety

would outdo the combined weight
of all the other animals.

They work on every level.

Tiny transporters,
they carry huge amounts

of leaves and soil
between the upper and lower forest.

As gardeners,
they grow plants in the treetops

to make their nests.

As farmers,

they gather the honeydew
produced by stinging insects

that feed on the trees' sap.

Termites impress me.

All day long, they decompose
huge amounts of dead wood.

They stubbornly carry soil to the sky

to build their fortress
high above the ground.

From the infinitely small
to the infinitely large,

the canvas uniting all living beings
is slowly woven.

This canvas, as yet incomplete,
is already dense enough

to heighten the tension
between hunter and hunted,

for nests and dwellings to become rare,

for the weak to migrate
to escape the strong.

The forest now has two faces,

one by day and one by night.

More than anything,
I love dawn in the forest.

This fragile moment
when the song of the day's animals

blends with the cries
of the night creatures.

How many of them
are hidden in the trees?

The trees

communicate in secret.

Not with sounds but scents.

Stringing scents together
as we do words,

they send their messages
over long dislnnoes.

Seducing, attracting.

Rejecting or enchanting,

their influence is considerable.

Like all living beings.

Trees need a mate
in order to reproduce,

or to pass on their pollen at least.

That's why ?owers are born.

They charm the animal
with their shape, colour and scent.

By hiding a little nectar
at their heart, they invite it

to roll in their pollen.

Then the animal moves on
to other ?owers

carrying further and further
the precious load

entrusted to it by the plant.

The technique is perfect.

The tree in bloom carries out,
remotely and discreetly,

something that causes
so much toil and energy for animals,

the act of mating.

Trees do not burden themselves
with useless things.

Flowers give way to ywna fruit

that will grow in secret.

When they're attacked,
trees sound the alarm.

They release odorous signals
that elicit an instant reaction

from their neighbours.

Their leaves then become toxic,
bitter er repulsive.

All the predator can do
is go elsewhere to eat.

We find the secondary forest trees
three centuries later.

They have become giants.

They new fight each other
for a place in the sun.

Putting a neighbour
in the shade kills it

and makes it vanish.

Some trees even engage
in a bodily struggle.

The strangler fig seed
arrives via the air.

While the other trees, year after year,

grew patiently
in the dim light of the woods,

this seed overtakes everyone.

It sprouts on high branches,
making the most of the sun's energy.

On sprouting, the young tree
sends its roots to the ground.

Roots?

Genuine lassos that immediately
weld together

as soon as they touch.

The struggle will last
several decades.

The tree slowly wastes away.

Down in the undergrowth,

profiteers try to seize
its dead leaves

before they touch the ground.

For me, the basket palm

is the most spectacular of them.

Ittrapsallitcantocarryittoilsrools

where the deoomposers help it
to produce ils own humus.

So many creatures
live in the undergrowth now

that every scrap, every particle

is a meal opportunity
fought over in countless ways.

The struggle comes to an end.

The strangler fig
has dew-toured its victim.

Taking its place in the forest,

I't has cannibalised its wood
to make its own branches.

It has taken its shape.

All that remains of the vanquished
is a gaping void

in the middle
of the vanquishefs huge trunk.

Over time, the foresfs ceiling closes.

On the ground, the low plants
have vanished through lack of light.

This open undergrowth
indicates a mature forest.

Asia! as the eye can see,

it's hard to find two trees
of the same family.

This is not an accident.

Living motionless
on the same spot for centuries

means accepting the impossibility
of ?eeing predators' attacks,

disease and parasites
that accumulate overtime.

The adult tree can bear all that
without too much harm

butifilsseedsfallatilsfeet.

They are irretrievably condemned.

The tree's only solution

is to scatter them
as far as possible.

Minute vibrations spread

through the ground for miles,

to the feet
of a hungry, waiting animal.

How ironic...

The trees feed the forest creatures

for one good reason:

to transport their seeds.

The fruit is merely the bait
in this ruse.

The trees even fill their fruit
with sugar

and delicious aromas.

They're irresistible.

The trick works.

The future tree
is carried off in a huge stomach

carried by stronq MS

and a brain always seeking to travel.

Some trees even make

the ?esh stick to the fruit's stone.

The glutlon will suck it at length

before finally spitting it out.

Thus the seed travels even further.

It amuses me to think
that each forest tree

travelled part of the way
with an animal.

How did it end up here?

During a hunt or a nap?

Time is so different for trees.

Animal life
must seem so brief to them.

The animal rules over space,
the tree overtime.

Trees are in fact great travellers.

They use all the mobile forces
of the natural world.

By water, on wings, on foot, on the wind,

they can spread to every continent.

I even know of trees
that can cross the oceans.

The forest is luxuriant again.

But it depends a great deal
on the daily tropical rain showers.

If there are just a few days
without rain,

the leaves begin to wither.

Particularly those of plants
living on branches

or trunks, far from the ground.

They have no way to stock water.

In the heat,

the forest is rich with scents.

This time, they rise to the sky.

The trees call for rain.

The scent molecules
trap water vapour

hanging in the air.

This suffices to form clouds.

It's as if the trees

kept the rain above their heads

to refresh themselves at will.

Back in the primary forest,

exceptional trees bloom.

They have trunks worthy
of the centuries that they have seen.

700 years n90.

This giant was a tiny seed.

Trees embody time.

The forces at work within such trees

are considerable.

The roots draw water,

vessels carry it upwards
to 220 feet above the ground.

The leaves turn it into sap

that returns to the branches and roots.

A tree lives through this ?ow.

When 'n can no hanger rake water
to 'its top,

it stops growing.

That's the only limit to its ascent.

The moabi is new an emergent tree,

one of those that dominate
the forest ocean

for over a thousand years.

The canopy.

The active surface
of the primary forest,

where life abounds
like nowhere else on earth.

Here, the forest touches the sky.

Here, thousands of individuals
sprout, grow

and breathe at the same time.

Atthe end ofils life,
atreeisaworldofitsown,

like an island.

It's the home for hundreds
of plant species,

occupied in turn
by hundreds of animal species,

also inhabited by smaller creatures.

On inking a closer look,

we discover that these tinier worlds

are infinitely small.

The accumulation of these creatures

becomes a burden that endangers
the tree's balance.

This giant that defied gravity
for centuries is going to surrender.

The death of great trees

is the perfect sign
of the forests maturity.

It reshuf?es the cards
by rutuming to the ground

the huge quantity of matter
represented by the fallen tree.

It also brings light
to the undergrowth

that hadn't seen any for centuries.

A tree that falls
is a genuine revolution.

When it happens.

The world of the canopy
meets that of the undergrowth.

Despite living in the same place,

they had never met before.

The seeds of pioneers
were waiting in the shade.

They instantly launch
the healing process.

A new cycle begins.

I've spent so many years
in forests.

A whole human lifetime.

Thinking in tree time
makes my head spin.

What does the world look like
when you live so long?

I've worked a lot, I've learned a lot

but I've merely touched on
this world's mysteries.

Here, I sense the power
of life's forces,

their creativity, their whims.

Something that goes beyond me
but whose grandeur I appreciate.

I cannot accept the disappearance
of this world.

My story is at its end.

I hear the murmur of primitive peoples
fading in the undergrowth,

carrying off the memory
of man who came from the forest.

In the past,
we lived in peace with the trees.

Our ancestors looked on them
as respectable and benevolent gods.

Today, we are victims of our own might.

Let us look at trees.

In their motionless serenity,

lie the roots
of what was our birthplace

and our wisdom.