Wild Inside: The Saga of a Bird and a City

Documentary filmmaker Penny Lane is highly prolific in the field. In recent years, she has released such films as Confessions of a Good Samaritan, Our Nixon, and Hail Satan? just to name a few. Now, she returns to the genre with Wild Inside. Within the first seconds of her latest film, fellow documentary director Jeremy Workman (Secret Mall Apartment) tells a story, harkening back to On February 2nd, 2023, about when he was walking down Fifth Avenue, and saw a male Eurasian eagle-owl. Workman then took the cellphone out of his pocket and showed the picture he snapped and posted online. Similarly to the director, plenty of New Yorkers have published images of the same bird online. Soon after, the news of the wild animal in the streets spread.

That name of the owl in question is Flaco, a twelve-year-old owl bred in North Carolina and brought to the Central Park Zoo, where he lived in an enclosure. Mysteriously, a gap appeared in the fences of his cell, and he flew through it, wandering around the city. Consequently, Lane investigated the surroundings of his flight, except for how he did it. The mystery of who cut the fence and how it could have escaped might be the least important aspect of the film. At first, there is concern about the enclosed bird feeding itself; once in the Zoo, it receives professional nutrition. Yet, there is a conversation about the ability of the bird to feed itself in the metropolis, whether it could hunt or not.

In this sense, the director centers most of the film on the following: people who post about him on social media and go to parks at night to seek him out. In this segment, the structure contemplates the birdwatchers, who spend most of their free time with expensive cameras and lenses, looking forward to capturing their movements and admiring them in their natural habitat. However, Wild Inside is more about the zeitgeist of a bird that provoked questions and emotions in the population of the world’s biggest city.

The film is more of a feel-good watch about the connection between the owl and the city. Even in the concrete jungle, a city that has since erased much of its forests, there is wildlife that shares its habitat with people. There are so many buildings and modernity that the wildlife is pushed into the corner. Yet, there is a capitalist logic of Flaco as a product: as news on the broadcasters, the merchandising dedicated to it, and the necessity of sharing it online. At this point, there is more concern for a social position than the well-being of the animal, which died from poor nutrition and colliding with a building.

Director Penny Lane’s style imparts Wild Life with a humorous tone to the compassion for the bird, aligning with support for his freedom, which lasted a year. Similarly, the film shows the wildlife professional’s side, even if it does not delve into it. In the end, it provides a perspective of the bird, as it is being followed around the city and its interactions with others. Yet, the film fails to dive deeper than the usual bullet points.

still courtesy of Sandbox Films

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Pedro Lima

Brazilian film writer. He is also a producer and executive producer for Zariah Filmes. Member of the International Film Society Critics Association (IFSCA), International Documentary Association (IDA), and Gotham and Media Film Institute.