The Velvet Queen

velvet queen movie review

Marie Amiguet and Vincent Munier 's "The Velvet Queen," opening today in New York and Los Angeles, is a calming, meditative experience. You can feel the chill in the air when you're watching it, and it often achieves a hypnotic tone, thanks in no small part to a gorgeous score from the two geniuses  Nick Cave and Warren Ellis , who find the perfect compositions for a project that reaches for something greater than a typical nature documentary. "The Velvet Queen" is at its strongest when it allows for silence on this gorgeous landscape, using only its mesmerizing score to elevate the imagery into something poetic about the beauty of mother nature. But while the visuals and music are stunning, the two subjects of the film (and its co-director) have a habit of over-explaining what they're doing not just in practical terms but remarkably self-serious philosophical ones as well. Other than a comment here or there about the hunt that these two men find themselves on, I could have discarded literally every soundbite in "The Velvet Queen," and would have preferred to just get lost in this frigid corner of the world.

"The Velvet Queen" unfolds in a mountainous, seemingly inhospitable part of the world, on the peaks of Tibet. Here, photographer (and co-director) Munier and his pal Sylvain Tesson (a famous author who wrote a successful book about the events of this film titled The Art of Patience – Seeking the Snow Leopard ) spend their days seeking wildlife that's often unseen by human eye. Munier hunts animals in this part of the world but only to shoot them with a camera, never a gun. He has a deep, almost religious view of the natural world, and it's made him a household name in his field, leading to the award for BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year three years in a row.

Munier narrates this journey through soundbites and conversation with Tesson. The joy he expresses over finding recent bear feces is downright inspiring. Especially as the world seems to be collapsing again, it's comforting to see someone so thrilled by something that's not man-made. His buddy Tesson even points out that what he's doing—hunting wild animals—is about as old the human species itself. As they spot falcons on a cliff face that practically camouflage themselves into it or antelopes fleeing an as-yet-unseen predator, Munier and Tesson display not only a deep intelligence but respect for what they're seeing.

Sadly, Munier and Amiguet don't trust their audience quite enough. I wished for an almost Werner Herzog approach to the material here that didn't spell out the philosophy or importance of mother nature as much as "The Velvet Queen" feels comfortable doing. And yet it's never quite self-serious enough to defeat what the film does well. Every time I felt like "The Velvet Queen" was spinning its wheels, the team would stumble onto some new vista of shot of an animal living in its own habitat. There's a calming serenity to the best of "The Velvet Queen," especially as the team gets closer to their end goal, a shot of a rare snow leopard. The idea that we should step out of our technology-driven worlds to be reminded of the existence of creatures of such beauty, majesty, and intelligence feels valuable at the end of 2021. Maybe we should all connect with mother nature more than we have been lately. I'm bringing the music of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis with me. 

In limited theatrical release today. National expansion to follow.

velvet queen movie review

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

velvet queen movie review

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  • Sylvain Tesson as Himself
  • Marie Amiguet
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‘The Velvet Queen’ Review: Searching for an Elusive Leopard

The documentary follows the photographer Vincent Munier and the writer Sylvain Tesson on a mission to catch a glimpse of a rare snow leopard in Tibet.

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velvet queen movie review

By Ben Kenigsberg

The documentary “The Velvet Queen” asks viewers to experience solitude in a way that is difficult to achieve in a movie theater. (Another of this week’s releases, “ Memoria ,” comes closer to the combination of image, sound and pacing it takes to inspire that kind of contemplative state.)

“The Velvet Queen” follows the wildlife photographer Vincent Munier and the writer Sylvain Tesson on a mission in a mountainous region of Tibet. They hope to catch a glimpse of a rare snow leopard . Their journey, with no guarantee of success, requires extreme patience and a disconnection from what Tesson, who narrates, calls the “puppet show of humanity.” At the end, he likens seeing the animal to the Promethean feat of stealing fire.

The movie operates on two basic levels. One is philosophical, as the camera watches two men who are themselves looking through viewfinders experience the sensations of a place where humans rarely disrupt the natural order.

Munier directed “The Velvet Queen” with the wildlife filmmaker Marie Amiguet, whom Tesson includes in a drawing he makes for children in the area, but whose presence generally goes unacknowledged. The end credits note that the film was shot with a small team and that great care was taken not to disturb the animals. Still, the men might not always be quite as alone as the film makes them look.

On another level, “The Velvet Queen” is a wondrous nature documentary. While it’s hard to imagine the film will conclude without a snow leopard, there are other animal stars along the way: wild yaks, Tibetan foxes, bears and the Pallas’s cat , whose cuddliness, to paraphrase Tesson, belies the fact that it might leap at your throat if you tried to pet it.

The Velvet Queen Not rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes. In theaters.

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The Velvet Queen Reviews

velvet queen movie review

Languid and enthralling, this long, patient quest to capture a rare creature on film in its sublime habitat becomes an audience obsession too

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 20, 2022

velvet queen movie review

A film of beauty, feeling, insight and inspiration.

Full Review | Nov 13, 2022

velvet queen movie review

This is more than just a nature documentary — it enters the realm of mysticism and the images of the leopard itself provide an immensely satisfying conclusion.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 11, 2022

velvet queen movie review

Munier’s breathtaking images are transcendently beautiful. That is all the eloquence the film needs.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 10, 2022

velvet queen movie review

On a purely visual level, The Velvet Queen is overwhelmingly breathtaking …

Full Review | Original Score: 18/20 | Nov 1, 2022

Snow leopards are one of the subjects of this documentary by Marie Amiguet and Vincent Munier, but they aren’t easy to find, so the film is also about the search itself.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 24, 2022

Simply insuperable, overwhelmingly stunning, and above all, a reflection of how we live at this juncture of civilization. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 27, 2022

If the narration is unapologetically poetic, that is often the only fitting register.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 10, 2022

velvet queen movie review

Maroons us in a desolate but beautiful part of the world, in a narrative building to a final unforgettable encounter.

Full Review | May 31, 2022

Wondrous and utterly sublime, The Velvet Queen is a visual ode to perfection -- a mesmerising piece of cinema that exudes utter childlike joy and sets the gold standard for those that would follow in its footsteps.

Full Review | May 12, 2022

By the time we finally see the leading lady, La Panthère des Neiges – as the film was called at home – has long since privileged the journey over the destination.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 6, 2022

velvet queen movie review

This is not your average “nature doc'' at all. The Velvet Queen is a rambling, dream-like, occasionally quite hallucinatory film. On a big screen, with the sound up loud, you may well love it. I did.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | May 5, 2022

velvet queen movie review

While Tesson’s script can get over-ripe, the drive of people like Munier is undeniably fascinating to consider.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 4, 2022

In its quiet moments your senses will be on edge, exploring the breathtaking landscape, alert to what might be hiding there.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 4, 2022

You might think you've seen enough nature documentaries about the snow leopard. But this one comes with a twist - it's French.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 2, 2022

While Tesson’s voiceover will not be for everyone, it’s impossible not to be moved by the cinematography...

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 1, 2022

The Velvet Queen offers us a much-needed antidote to our hustle and bustle, our fractured attention span, our inability to appreciate things.

Full Review | Apr 29, 2022

The directorial debut by French filmmaker Marie Amiguet will hook you in and stay with you long after the end credits roll.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 29, 2022

Even if you'd much rather have Sir David Attenborough as a guide, some of the photography in this film is truly breathtaking.

velvet queen movie review

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‘The Velvet Queen’ Review: A Lyrical Nature Documentary More Concerned With Soulfulness Than Spectacle

Two French adventurers travel the Tibetan Highlands in search of the elusive snow leopard, but Marie Amiguet and Vincent Munier's quietly spellbinding doc is more about the chase than the quarry.

By Guy Lodge

Film Critic

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The Velvet Queen

A svelte, slinky figure in spotted silvery blond, the snow leopard is one of the great haughty glamazons of the animal kingdom — a status suitably acknowledged in the English-language title of “The Velvet Queen,” Marie Amiguet and Vincent Munier’s lovely, unexpected screen ode to the little-seen feline. (The original French title is the rather more prosaic “La panthère des neiges.”) Yet if the title implies the naturalist’s equivalent of diva worship, the film’s approach surprises us, fixating less on the furry dazzle of the snow leopard in her natural Tibetan habitat than on the very act of looking at nature in the first place. Following Munier (a leading wildlife photographer) and adventurer Sylvain Tesson on an arduous trek to catch sight of the beast, the doc thoughtfully ponders the conflicted nature of a one-way relationship between watcher and watched.

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More art-house than Animal Planet, complete with a sparsely atmospheric score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, the film (which appropriately premiered in Cannes’ new eco-conscious Cinema for the Climate program, and is being released Stateside by Oscilloscope) should find a dedicated audience without becoming a “My Octopus Teacher”-level phenomenon. One suspects its aloof subject won’t mind. Man, after all, is the primary reason the queen in question has become so elusive, with poaching and environmental destruction having slashed Asia’s snow leopard population to grimly endangered levels. And with man, in turn, having subsequently granted her a kind of mythic status for that rarity, “The Velvet Queen” tacitly wonders just what the cat owes her human admirers.

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It’s that wry, self-effacing awareness that lends an endearingly quixotic air to the quest, and that separates the film from more plainly spectacle-driven nature documentaries of its ilk. For one thing, Munier and Amiguet — both first-time feature directors, with the latter having previously shot the comparably themed, wolf-oriented 2016 documentary “La vallée des loups” — have little interest in the iridescent, awe-driven aesthetic gloss so popular in its genre. There’s no magic-hour varnish applied to the forbiddingly rugged, taupe-hued vistas of the Tibetan Highlands, the considerable beauty of which nonetheless doesn’t demand to be framed.

Rather, it’s a seemingly barren landscape that requires patience from the onlooker, its manifold forms of life revealing themselves slowly and subtly, often in canny camouflage. Munier and Tesson learn as much, as their repeatedly frustrated journey to find the snow leopard yields other discoveries and points of fascination along the way, just so long as they adapt to the pace of their surroundings. “Waiting was a prayer,” Munier observes, in a sometimes eccentrically abstract voiceover that he and Amiguet also co-scripted. “If nothing came, we just hadn’t looked at it properly.”

And so the audience learns to watch the same way, reveling in other sights, sounds and lifeforms not advertised by the title, as the eponymous monarch keeps us waiting. An extended look at a Tiberan antelope, or a more fleeting one at the lithe, eternally scowling Tibetan fox, is its own reward; even a tiny, orange-breasted lark becomes regal under the filmmakers’ collective gaze, which gradually drinks in an entire ecosystem. Humanity doesn’t get entirely short shrift either, as Munier and Tesson’s dealings with the region’s locals — adults and children alike, who don’t exoticize their native wildlife in the same way — account for some of the film’s wittiest material.

But what of the leopard? After several near-misses and cold trails, our explorers begin to accept that it may have evaded them. “Not everything was created for the human eye,” Munier narrates. That would be a valuable takeaway from the exercise, though “The Velvet Queen” isn’t so austere or perverse as to deny us some closure, and with a first glimpse of a tail coyly curling out from behind a rock formation, the big cat is eventually granted a true screen siren’s entrance. She’s magnificent, of course, but by this time is of a piece with her strange, seductive environment. This elegant, unusual documentary shifts the role of the game-spotter from that of non-violent hunter — in pursuit of one prized target — to passive but duly wide-eyed observer, accepting but also appreciating the limits of our access.

Reviewed at Int'l Documentary Festival Amsterdam, Nov. 24, 2021. (Also in Cannes, Zurich film festivals.) Running time: 92 MIN. (Original title: "La panthère des neiges")

  • Production: (Documentary – France) An Oscilloscope (in U.S.) release of a Paprika Films, Kobalan, Le Bureau production. (World sales: The Bureau Sales, Paris.) Producers: Laurent Baujard, Pierre-Emmanuel Fleurantin, Vincent Munier. Co-producers: Bertrand Faivre, Vincent Gadelle.
  • Crew: Directors, writers, camera: Marie Amiguet, Vincent Munier. Editors: Marie Amiguet, Vincent Schmitt. Music: Warren Ellis, Nick Cave.

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Review: Informed by majesty and wonder, ‘The Velvet Queen’ reveals the humane in nature

A snow leopard high atop a snowy, rocky hillside.

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Gorgeous, humbling, looking out-, up- and inward, the documentary “The Velvet Queen” is the rare nature film about not only beauty and beasts but also the very human urge to make sense of our place in it all.

The film is three-way French collaboration wherein wildlife photographer Vincent Munier guides writer Sylvain Tesson on a trip into the Tibetan highlands, filmed by Marie Amiguet (a cinematographer making her feature debut co-directing with Munier). It starts as a quest for the elusive, endangered snow leopard but settles gracefully into an appreciation for the journey and any and all wonders it uncovers: a silhouetted yak in the moonlight resembling a monster from a child’s dream; swirling high-altitude mist that suggests the mountain is breathing; a richly furred Pallas’ cat whose halting movements approaching its prey might make it the best red-light-green-light player ever.

Tesson’s narration and florid commentary provide a few background facts in the early going. He’d long admired Munier’s photography and films, and it turned into a friendship. Now he’s trailing this nature obsessive into cold, arid, picturesque plains, shadowy valleys and rocky elevations where — as Munier likes to point out — they wouldn’t be the only ones doing the watching. (A droll opening shows two local nomads sitting outside the base hut, waiting for the men’s return from one of their excursions, dryly wondering if a pack of wolves ate them.)

Patience is Munier’s abiding principle, which is why his article of faith is in the well-chosen blind, a concealment spot where he’ll happily stay for brutal lengths of time until creatures make their appearance. Or not. Fully accepting that he’s the vulnerable stumbler into conditions and spaces typically inhospitable to humans, Munier still finds spiritual worth in going a day without any sightings. What matters is being present to nature’s breadth as a way of pushing back against what he sees as humans’ ecologically detrimental indifference to their surroundings. It makes him as excited noticing a cave’s polished rock wall, damp prints and mossy strands, which indicate a bear’s onetime habitat, as he is seeing the bear in the flesh. (And they eventually do during one of their stakeouts, which is a thrilling moment.)

The snow leopard, meanwhile, is whispered about as if it were the alluring suspect in an existential noir. Munier says he once photographed one without realizing it, his viewfinder attention drawn toward centering a perched falcon — only years later did he notice the leopard peering over a nearby ridge, blended into the terrain. That image from his archive (which we get to see) is indeed a stunning example of hiding in plain sight, and it helps train our eyes for later instances of camouflage and emergence, when Amiguet’s camera is fixed on a craggy hillside, and Munier is informing us of a creature’s presence. In these moments, “The Velvet Queen” can feel like a series of paintings that occasionally come to life.

A snow leopard blends into a wall of rocks behind it.

Tesson’s soft-spoken musings, pulled from his notes, are a more scattershot element. Sometimes they’re wonderfully evocative of his companion’s philosophy of loving the Earth through looking deeply at it, and what it feels like to see these harsh landscapes and their inhabitants as Munier does. Sometimes they’re a tad overwrought as cosmic commentary, as when he says, “Prehistory wept, and each tear was a yak.” The more psalm-like accompaniments outweigh the purpler prose. (Tesson’s writings on the trip were published as “The Art of Patience: Seeking the Snow Leopard in Tibet.”)

The key takeaway is that “The Velvet Queen” feels like a humane adventure, not some patronizing tour of the wild. No spoilers, either, on whether their search yields the desired glimpse (a “tail” end?), but then again, when was a detective story about the arrest, or a road-trip movie about the destination, or a fable about the moral? This benevolent hunt along stunning peaks and vast plateaus is rich with animal majesty and unspoiled geographical magnificence. And most important, it never feels like simply waiting for something.

'The Velvet Queen'

In French and Tibetan with English subtitles Not rated Running time: 1 hour, 32 minutes Playing: Starts Dec. 22, Laemmle Royal, West Los Angeles

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User reviews

The Velvet Queen (2021)

The Velvet Queen

The reason why whe should learn to readapt/reconnect with the/our world.

  • nicolailaros
  • Mar 20, 2022

Animals are beautiful

  • tabbal-michel
  • Dec 16, 2021

Nature's ravishing beauty hidden in plain sight

  • TheDragonTrader
  • Jun 13, 2022

An absolutely beautiful film

  • grizos-726-659483
  • Jan 16, 2022

Simply amazing

  • Norwaybrazil
  • Mar 6, 2022

Breathtaking

  • arielbravo-48217
  • May 8, 2022

Simply beautiful

  • clairie-papazoglou
  • Aug 26, 2022

Tries to be a bit too much here and there, but still a decent watch thanks to mesmerizing nature recordings

  • Horst_In_Translation
  • Mar 28, 2022
  • Jun 20, 2022
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  • Nov 19, 2022

Open and honest, a true journalist endeavour.

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  • Apr 14, 2024

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COMMENTS

  1. The Velvet Queen movie review (2021) - Roger Ebert

    The Velvet Queen is at its best when it allows for silence on this gorgeous landscape, using only its mesmerizing score to elevate the imagery into something poetic about the beauty of mother nature.

  2. The Velvet Queen - Rotten Tomatoes

    In the heart of the Tibetan highlands, multi-award-winning nature photographer Vincent Munier guides writer Sylvain Tesson on his quest to document the infamously elusive snow leopard. Munier...

  3. The Velvet Queen (2021) - IMDb

    The Velvet Queen: Directed by Marie Amiguet, Vincent Munier. With Vincent Munier, Sylvain Tesson. Two men explore the high-altitude wilderness of Tibet with many cameras, filming wildlife from a respectful distance and searching for the rare snow leopard.

  4. The Velvet Queen Reviews - Metacritic

    Summary In the heart of the Tibetan highlands, multi-award-winning nature photographer Vincent Munier guides writer Sylvain Tesson on his quest to document the infamously elusive snow leopard. Munier introduces Tesson to the subtle art of waiting from a blind spot, tracking animals, and finding the patience to catch sight of the beasts. Through...

  5. ‘The Velvet Queen’ Review: Searching for an Elusive Leopard

    “The Velvet Queen” follows the wildlife photographer Vincent Munier and the writer Sylvain Tesson on a mission in a mountainous region of Tibet. They hope to catch a glimpse of a rare snow...

  6. The Velvet Queen - Movie Reviews - Rotten Tomatoes

    Wondrous and utterly sublime, The Velvet Queen is a visual ode to perfection -- a mesmerising piece of cinema that exudes utter childlike joy and sets the gold standard for those that would follow...

  7. 'The Velvet Queen' Review: A Quietly Spellbinding Nature Doc

    Two French adventurers travel the Tibetan Highlands in search of the elusive snow leopard, but Marie Amiguet and Vincent Munier's quietly spellbinding doc is more about the chase than the quarry.

  8. 'The Velvet Queen' review: Seeking the snow leopard in Tibet ...

    The documentary "The Velvet Queen" follows nature photographer Vincent Munier and writer Sylvain Tesson's quest to spot Tibet's elusive snow leopard.

  9. The Velvet Queen (2021) - The Velvet Queen (2021) - IMDb

    "La panthère des neiges" or "The Velvet Queen" is a French French-language film from 2021 and so far the biggest career achievement by writers and directors Marie Amiguet and Vincent Munier. Not that this means a lot as they have really not been too prolific yet.

  10. The Velvet Queen - Wikipedia

    The Velvet Queen (French: La Panthère des neiges, lit. 'The Snow Panther') is a 2021 French-language documentary film. It follows Sylvain Tesson and Vincent Munier as they attempt to find a snow leopard in Tibet.