‘Strange Neighbors’ Review: A Pretty but Familiar-Feeling Environmental Doc Portrays Natural Beauty Jostled by Man-Made Ugliness

There are certain words in film descriptions that can produce hives in reviewers. A prime example is “meditative,” an often-used adjective that’s particularly susceptible to abuse.

But there’s no denying it’s the word to describe Mi Steinbach’s nature documentary Strange Neighbors, which chronicles the abundant wildlife on a man-made island in the Elbe River near Hamburg that’s closely adjacent not only to giant container ships passing by but also huge factories and refineries near its shores. Shot on-and-off by the filmmaker over the course of three years, the documentary is receiving its world premiere as the opening night film of the Oldenburg International Film Festival.

Strange Neighbors

The Bottom Line Little that you haven't seen before.

Venue: Oldenburg International Film Festival
Director: Mi Steinbach
1 hour 20 minutes

Steinbach, making her feature directorial debut, took the decision not to inject herself into the proceedings, neither appearing on film nor delivering a narration. The only aural component are the natural sounds of the wildlife and man-made operations she recorded and an electronic music score by Robert Nacken that proves alternately soothing and abrasive depending on what’s being shown.

The island, a mere three kilometers long and .5 kilometers wide, was created during a widening of the river in the 1960s. Despite its diminutive size, it contains a staggering amount of diverse wildlife, which the filmmaker, who periodically lived on the island in a hut perched on stilts, was apparently determined to photograph in its entirety.

She doesn’t identify any of the animals or insects she’s filmed, leading viewers to play a mental game of how many species they can identify. Being an urban denizen myself, I fear I came up woefully short, having to remind myself — after seeing shots of buzzing bees followed by flying birds — not to break into a chorus of Cole Porter’s “Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love.”

From a fox staring directly at the camera to a lazy sea otter barely letting his head poke above the water’s surface, Strange Neighbors features a cornucopia of animal life. There are flocks of geese and ducks, soaring hawks, chipmunks, deer, numerous varieties of insects, and many, many more. Steinbach shoots other aspects of nature as well, displaying a particular fondness for the images of plants and trees reflected in shimmering bodies of water. There are scenes shot at dawn, dusk, day and night, in beautiful weather and in pouring rain, the latter of which inevitably results in gorgeous rainbows. There are shots of the moon in which it looks so large you expect a rocket to burst into it as in Melies’ A Trip to the Moon.

The filmmaker contrasts her bucolic nature scenes with shots of the giant ships passing by and the interiors and exteriors of the factories located near the island, belching smoke and lit up at night like a forbidding theme park. There are shots of wind turbines that seem designed to send Donald Trump over the edge, and numerous examples of animals being startled by the loud noise emanating from the ships passing by the island. Drone shots are used periodically to provide an overhead perspective, and speeded-up photography delivers images of clouds and water rushing by.

It’s all very pretty and visually striking, but it doesn’t really add up to much, especially with its repetitive-feeling 80-minute running time. Nature documentaries, many photographed more elegantly than this one, are a dime a dozen these days, with entire streaming channels devoted to them. And while the film’s juxtaposition between the natural beauty and the manufactured ugliness is indeed striking, it doesn’t provide much insight into either one. For a truly powerful portrait of the disparity between the natural and human worlds, you need to see Koyaanisqatsi.