Spatial Representation in 24 Frames as a Condition for the Emergence of Atmosphere

Spatial representation in 24 Frames as a condition for the emergence of atmosphere Natacha Cyrulnik[0000-0003-0530-1331], Isabelle Singer[0000-0002-0011-5874, Jean-Pierre Moreau[0000-0001-7327-5783], Isotta Trastevere[0009-0004-3083-2067] (co-First Author), and Isabel Castro[0009-0009-6706-976X], Javier Elipe Gimeno[0000-0002-0358-385X] (co-Second Author), and Rosine Bénard O’Kelly[0000-0002-2045-0397], Betina Hueto [0009-0009-46375012], Rémi Adjiman[0000-0003-1830-4080] 1 1 Aix Marseille Univ. - CNRS, PRISM, Marseille, France Abstract : As part of the AtmosphèreS structuring project within the UMR 7061 PRISM (Perception, Representations, Image, Sound, Music), an interdisciplinary group of researchers watched Abbas Kiarostami's film 24 frames (2017) together. This article explores the issue of atmosphere in different forms of audiovisual representation, examined here through the prism of space. As atmosphere is a concept that is difficult to define disciplinarily, an interdisciplinary context is essential for crossing the reflections emerging from our different practices. Starting from a filmic analysis of a few frames, we move on to an analysis of the audiovisual object using a phenomenological approach. From Brueghel's painting to the creation of unreal space and empty space, considerations about the anthropocene take shape, opening up the political dimension of the work. Collaborative and interdisciplinary research contributes to the evolution of audiovisual language and establishes a shared theoretical foundation that may open the way to new forms of audiovisual or multimodal storytelling. Keywords : Atmosphere, interdisciplinarity, audiovisual 1. Introduction As part of the AtmosphèreS structuring project within the UMR 7061 PRISM “Perception, Representations, Image, Sound, Music” laboratory, an interdisciplinary group of researchers watched Abbas Kiarostami's film 24 Frames (2017) together looking at what makes up the atmosphere in this atypical film object. Here, atmosphere is understood as the result of multiple surrounding components that contribute to the living quality of the experience. What interests us in particular is the issue of atmosphere in its forms of audiovisual representation, questioned here through the prism of space. As Baille and Maraninchi wrote following the Study Day on “Interdisciplinary Representations of Atmosphere through Image and Sound” which we organized in November 2024 1 : “While atmosphere is first and foremost a physical reality, its representation through concept, image, or sound reveals its elusive nature— something ever-present in the air, yet invisible, difficult to define, and nonetheless deeply felt” (Baille & Maraninchi, 2024). Atmosphere is a concept that is difficult to define from a disciplinary point of view, so it seemed to us that an interdisciplinary 1 For more information : https://crossdisciplines.hypotheses.org/1391 Proc. of the 17th International Symposium on CMMR, London, UK, Nov. 3-7, 2025 826 2 N. Cyrulnik, I. Singer, J.-P. Moreau, I. Trastevere, I. Castro, J. Elipe Gimeno, R. Bénard O’kelly, B. Hueto, R. Adjiman context more on the side of social sciences and humanities that would allow us to crossreference the ideas arising from our different practices could be productive. Starting with film analysis, we move towards analysis of the audiovisual object using a phenomenological approach, and switch from one to the other as we progress. To begin with, in terms of method, we write down our individual impressions in order to share them collectively and identify potential common denominators. Through this constructive and multifaceted approach, an experimental method for investigating the notion of atmosphere gradually takes shape. Initially grounded in our respective disciplinary perspectives (musicology, film studies, and information and communication sciences), our reflections, once brought together, allow us to move beyond the limitations of disciplinary focus and approach this intangible concept more effectively. In doing so, we develop a multidisciplinary method that combines film analysis, phenomenological inquiry, and a consciously assumed subjectivity for each spectator, combined with collective reflexive work. The initial personal interpretative analysis becomes collaborative and consistent across disciplines to create unity in the approach. The originality of this approach therefore aims to test interdisciplinarity, while experimenting with it, here through analysis, writing and sharing, more specifically. 24 Frames, Kiarostami's latest film, was chosen because it seems to question the fundamentals of cinema: 24 frames, 24 images per second. The title refers to the framerate, or more precisely to the transition from the still image to the impression of movement. The term frame refers to the frame within which the image is given, the space in which it unfolds, its composition and, more specifically, the relationships between the various audiovisual elements. The film is made up of 24 shots, with a total running time of 1 hour 50 minutes, or around 5 minutes per shot. At the very beginning of the film, before the title, we can read the following text : I always wonder to what extent the artist aims to depict the reality of a scene. Painters capture only one frame of reality and nothing before or after it. For 24 Frames I started with famous paintings but then switched to photos I had taken through the years. I included about four and a half minutes of what I imagined might have taken place before or after each image that I had captured. Abbas Kiarostami. (Kiarostami, 2017). The film project consists in imagining the moments before and after photographic stills taken by the filmmaker over the course of several months. The relationship with photography is obvious from the long duration of the shots, the dominant fixity of the frames, and the fixity of the subject in certain shots. This film was chosen first and foremost for its atypical form, which, in its ways of staging space, image-sound interaction, relationship to temporality and narrative, gradually reveals atmospheres. What are the conditions for the emergence of an atmosphere? Can we discern the spatial elements in particular that define or construct an atmosphere? Our intention is to combine the description of filmic data with questions of perception, using an aesthetic, rhetorical and phenomenological approach. As a “philosophy of creative intention” (Berger, 1941, p. 100), the phenomenological approach is based on the relationship between the object and the gaze, the object and the subject, which makes it particularly relevant for dealing with atmosphere. Proc. of the 17th International Symposium on CMMR, London, UK, Nov. 3-7, 2025 827 Spatial representation in 24 Frames as a condition for the emergence of atmosphere 3 Atmosphere is ontologically both external and internal, raising questions about the quality of objects and the interpretation we can make of them. As Gernot Böhme writes in his seminal essay on the subject: “Atmosphere is the common reality of the perceiver and the perceived: it is the reality of the perceived as the sphere of its presence, and it is the reality of the perceiver since, in feeling the atmosphere, the perceiver is corporeally present in a specific way.” (Böhme, 2018, p. 36) Atmosphere would therefore be located both in the aesthetic object and in what the viewer does with it. "The relationship that can be established between the qualities of an environment and human dispositions then becomes central. This “and”, the in-between that relates environmental qualities and dispositions, are atmospheres." (Böhme, 2018, p.26). In its conception, 24 Frames seems to propose the exploration of a space of coconstruction with the spectator. Kiarostami's rejection of so-called narrative cinema is an integral part of his trajectory. According to the filmmaker : The only way to envisage a new cinema is to give greater consideration to the role of the spectator. We have to envisage an unfinished and incomplete cinema so that the viewer can intervene and fill in the gaps. Instead of making a film with a solid, impeccable structure. (...) Perhaps the solution is to encourage the viewer to have an active and constructive presence. (...) In this way, there is diversity of thought and reaction. Everyone builds their own film (Kiarostami in Nancy, 2001, p. 67). With a singular and radical approach, the Iranian director allows viewers to project themselves into the images and sounds and construct their own film and, by extension, their own atmospheres. Through his singular relationship with time and almost always fixed frames that create a space to inhabit, Abbas Kiarostami sets up a perceptive device where “spectators see, feel and understand something insofar as they compose their own poem” 2 (Rancière, 2008, p. 19). The film becomes an invitation to create meaning through affordances (Gibson, 1966): merely passing by the comprehension of the represented environment. Each frame constitutes a space-time in which the audience activlely adapts by interpretating the movements perceived on the screen. The phenomenological analysis of this filmic device (Baudry, 1975; Agamben, 2007 3 ) will examine this link between space, time and atmosphere. We will start by analyzing a few frames of the film in an attempt to list the factors that influence the creation of atmosphere, from the specific to the general, from the perception of the present moment to the form of the film. 2. Frame 1 : adding time to the picture space The first frame is a painting that comes to life. The few visual and sound elements that are added to the painting are a kind of introduction to what the film is about to be, to 2 It is no coincidence that Kiarostami's work, "somewhere between cinema, photography and poetry", is particularly cited in Jacque Rancière's essay Le spectateur émancipé as a contemporary example of "the pensiveness of the image" (Rancière, 2008, p. 132). 3 « (…) I call a device anything that has, in one way or another, the capacity to capture, orientate, determine, intercept, model, control and ensure the gestures, behaviours, opinions and discourses of living beings" (Agamben G., 2007, Qu'est-ce qu'un dispositif ?, Rivages poche, petite bibliothèque, 2011, 1st edition in Italian 2007, p.31). Proc. of the 17th International Symposium on CMMR, London, UK, Nov. 3-7, 2025 828 4 N. Cyrulnik, I. Singer, J.-P. Moreau, I. Trastevere, I. Castro, J. Elipe Gimeno, R. Bénard O’kelly, B. Hueto, R. Adjiman immerse the viewer in a particular atmosphere that will develop over the course of the film. In this pictorial space, a world is gently set in motion, an atmosphere emerges. In this first tableau, the film's set-up establishes a contract with the viewer, and an atmosphere is built up as the frames unfold. This article develops this question of space at the same pace as the film is experienced by the spectator, moving from initial audiovisual discoveries to increasingly phenomenological and hermeneutic considerations. The use of the painting Hunters in the Snow (1565) by Pieter Brueghel the Elder engages a meta-reflexive posture. Typical of the High Renaissance movement, with the beginning of a rationalised composition of space through the use of perspective, the figurative conception of the frame forms a projective position specific to a modernised recognition of space. But Abbas Kiarostami begins by adding a diegetic sound, a sound of wind and snow that is sensorially marked by a reactive shiver. This is followed by the sounds of footsteps, muffled by the snow, with distant voices and unidentified metallic noises, before the cawing of crows takes over the sound ensemble. Visual and audio elements evolve and interact to create this shared distorted atmosphere. As Véronique Campan explains, "sound is not only made up of audible elements, but is enriched by all the virtual acoustic parameters that a viewer is able to infer from a given diegetic situation" (Campan, 1999, p.8). The contemplative act of viewing a pictorial composition begins to be compromised by the visual and auditory construction of a virtual space. In this way, the space of the painting comes increasingly to life, and with this device in place, the viewer is plunged into a form of immersion. The approach is both sensory (Pink, 2009) and reflexive, in the sense that the viewer enters the film by discovering the beginnings of cinema, with a painting that becomes sonorous and gradually comes to life. Initially, the movement is created by the steam from the smoke 4 coming out of a chimney. Then we hear sounds that presuppose a movement that is invisible for the moment : first an ambience of wind that deepens the space, then a crow comes to life in a second stage of movement that is visual. And the two types of movement, sound and visual, come together in the crow's caw. So the movement is first sound, then visual, and finally audiovisual. The image is then filled with different types of movement: crows, dogs, cows, people. We move from an immobile, contemplative sensibility to a mobile, active sensibility. What emerges is an atmospheric sensation that prompts our gaze to simulate a variable space-time in order to inhabit the image sensorially. The temporal loops of the moving elements in the painting create a microcosm within the spatio-temporal whole. The animation of the painting thus reveals the event, understood in the Heideggerian phenomenological sense as movement (Pieron, 2023, p. 395). This image, and those that follow, evoke a question about the creation of an atmospheric sensation of habitation. It is the sensitive approach to the atmosphere that allows us to approach it. The viewer experiences a new method of apprehending space (Dewey, 1934; Samurtojo & Pink, 2019). The image is not constructed via a narrative or symbolic corporalisation, but is constituted as a living image. This is the strength of the spectator experience. Not only do we enter the painting, but the soundtrack to this 4 “Vapour” corresponds to the etymology of the term “atmosphere”. Atmós in Greek means “Vapour”. Proc. of the 17th International Symposium on CMMR, London, UK, Nov. 3-7, 2025 829 Spatial representation in 24 Frames as a condition for the emergence of atmosphere 5 sequence enlarges the image by creating an off-screen space with the sound of crows cawing and atmospheric agents. Certain areas of the image are activated, attracting the viewer's attention as they explore the animated painting. The confrontation or contamination between still and moving images is set out right from the start of the film. The animations and sounds added to Brueghel's painting act as punctums 5 (Barthes, 1980) as if Kiarostami were sharing his personal vision of the painting with the viewer, while giving them the opportunity to create their own. Gradually, the tiniest detail becomes a source of fascination. 3. Frame 3 : Unreal space and proto-narrativity From the second frame onwards, the sequences are made up of recorded images, always characterised by the addition of visual special effects. The shots are wide, as is the framing of the landscape painting that opens the film. The wide frame balances the importance of the characters and the environment in favour of the latter. We see figures - essentially animals - captured in a landscape. The indifference of the camera, always fixed and placed at the same distance, neither too close nor too far away, becomes a recurring element of each frame and thus seems to suggest the suspension of judgement (époquè), characteristic of the phenomenological approach. The third frame in particular is representative of the unreal status of the film sequences that are offered to viewers, and of the nature of perception through what is apprehended. The sequence shows a beach, with a rough sea (the viewer can guess that it has been added digitally), and a herd of cows passing in front of one of them, isolated from the group, lying on the ground, sleeping. Although the repetition of the lying cow's breathing movement is easily identifiable, the trace of this digital stratagem is erased. The viewer feels the dampness of the beach, the chill of the striking wind (amplified by the sound), the vibrations of the passing herd as the sound of footsteps sinking into the sand moves from the left to the right of the frame. Kiarostami's digital poetry in this frame plays on the viewer's perceptive focus. The sound of the waves gives rise to a kinaesthetic vibration closely linked to the apprehension of the forces of nature, in other words an apprehension linked to the interior of the body, to the organs and not to the five senses. Kiarostami's work thus empathises with the viewer's corporeal state, which then shapes the creation of a personal atmosphere because, as Gernot Böhme points out, "perception includes the affective impact [...] the living body and how it feels" (Böhme, 2018, p. 47). The slightest noise, the slightest visual appearance (particularly of cows) helps to shape the atmosphere and make it evolve, in connection with each of the personal narratives that the spectators construct. In the same way as the immobilitymobility relationship mentioned for the first frame, the body of the breathing cow and the coming and going of the waves mobilise the viewers' perception and summon them into an experience of audiovisual perception that engages the body (Leman & Maes, 2015; Bellour, 2009). 5 "Punctum is also a puncture, a little hole, a little stain, a little cut - and also a throw of the dice. The punctum of a photograph is that chance which, in it, points at me (but also bruises me, grips me)". (Barthes, 1980, p.48-49). Proc. of the 17th International Symposium on CMMR, London, UK, Nov. 3-7, 2025 830 6 N. Cyrulnik, I. Singer, J.-P. Moreau, I. Trastevere, I. Castro, J. Elipe Gimeno, R. Bénard O’kelly, B. Hueto, R. Adjiman The soundtrack of the third frame begins with the diegetic coming and going of the waves, made up of two different sound levels: the background ambience of the sea, which varies in intensity as it goes along, and the sound of the waves crashing against the coast. The soundscape is punctuated by cues such as seagulls calling and crows cawing. The arrival of the herd of cows is heralded by highly reverberant, off-screen mooing, which helps to give the audiovisual situation an artificial quality. The almost “human” mooing inhabits the space, while the background soundscape builds to a crescendo as the reclining cow rises and leaves the frame at the end of the sequence. The digital sound and visual effects thus present a certain artificiality that creates a discrepancy between realism and unrealism, contributing to a loss of reference points for the spectator. In several of his films, Kiarostami enjoys playing with the viewer, blurring the boundaries between documentary and fiction. In 1994, Jean-Pierre Limosin made a documentary on the filmmaker entitled Abbas Kiarostami, vérités et mensonges, in which Kiarostami explains : Whether it's documentary or fiction, it's all one big lie that we tell the viewer. Our art consists in telling this lie in such a way that the viewer believes it. Whether one part is documentary or another is reconstructed is a question of our working method and none of the viewers' business. The most important thing is that the viewer knows that we are lining up a series of lies to arrive at a greater truth. Lies that aren't real but are, in a way, true. This unreal audiovisual situation evokes Gernot Böhme's notion of ecstasy. "We perceive the atmosphere all the better when it goes beyond our experience of the visible and audible world, when it emanates from a world that goes beyond, that breaks with realism. (...) That which thus exceeds, which emanates from things with increased magnitude, we can call “ecstasy”" (Singer, 2024, § 30) 6 . 24 Frames immerses the viewer in representations of spaces that often challenge the visual, aural and narrative understanding of the scenes leading the viewer to find new narrative logics. Through the superimposition and collage of anecdotal images and sounds, this frame opens up the possibility of a proto-narrative potential, given by the movement of the audiovisual elements, which could be considered the simplest possible form of narrative. The audiovisual device conceived by Abbas Kiarostami can be thought of as the possibility of immersing oneself in a landscape whose meaning is ensured by the continuity of movement. By studying the first and third frames we are beginning to identify the initial factors that determine the atmosphere of 24 Frames, in the movement that engages the body and in the representation of an unreal space. However, there are other factors that contribute to the creation of the particular atmosphere of this film, factors that need to be analysed, in particular the relationship to time and the role of the music present in certain frames of the film. 6 “The thing is not conceived in terms of its difference from other things, of its separation or unity, but rather from the way in which it emanates or emerges from itself […]. To describe how things emerge from themselves, we propose the expression ‘ecstasies of things’” (Böhme, 2018, p. 35). Proc. of the 17th International Symposium on CMMR, London, UK, Nov. 3-7, 2025 831 Spatial representation in 24 Frames as a condition for the emergence of atmosphere 7 4. The temporality of the empty space 24 Frames is characterised by an emptiness that is left free, a long time that seems to pass only with difficulty and as if reluctantly. An economy of movement that begs the question : where is this going to happen and when? The relationship with time imposes an atmosphere, and in this respect the fourth frame is interesting to study, because in this sequence an impression of gravity is created by the experience of waiting. Under falling snow, following an off-camera shot, we see a group of deer crossing the frame from left to right. One of them stops, retraces his steps and looks back; we are waiting for something, and the continuity of the movement is charged with a tension that concentrates the moment. Other members of the herd pass him, while the stag remains motionless until his obviously elderly friend arrives. The two animals then set off again together in the same slow gait. We can see how Kiarostami invites the viewer to relate first and foremost to the plastic nature of the scenes. This radical choice, which characterises the film, makes it possible to break down barriers and invent new ‘open’ narrative logics. This device could be defined as a narrative by atmosphere. Here, atmosphere becomes the element through which we apprehend meaning, not just the colour we attribute to the narrative, but rather a narrative through colours. Peter Brook calls ‘the empty space’ (1968) in the theatre the ideal place to be found, which allows genuine communication to be established without perpetually reproducing the framework of an illusion that nobody is fooled by (Dumur, 1977, p.7). Abbas Kiarostami is far from theatrical convention, seeking instead to relate what could be reality, but always playing on the falseness of fiction (Schaeffer, 1999, p. 62 7 ). For all that, he seeks to put the spectator in touch with the subject of the film. The theatre of the sacred or the invisible evoked by Peter Brook can be taken up here by Kiarostami's notion of a more or less visible or spectacular “event”. Here, the emptiness of waiting for the deer gives rise to an event that is no longer exclusively phenomenological, but is also observed in its aesthetic or even relational dimension. As Bernard Lamizet explains in Sémiotique de l'événement (2006), this is the moment when, here and now, a break occurs between a singular and a collective dimension, helping the subject to become aware of his or her identity. In other words, the empty space in the frames is filled by the link created by the atmosphere. There has to be slowness and time for there to be a relationship. The slowness of the action puts the viewer in a position where they can look and listen more closely to the details of the work. A real pictorial quality emerges from these “tableau shots”, encouraging a contemplative attitude. The way we experience the atmosphere is enhanced by meditative thought (more available to what is happening) : "Meditative thought sometimes requires great effort and always requires long training. It requires even more delicate care than any other genuine craft. It must also, like the farmer, know how to wait for the grain to germinate and the ear to ripen" (Heidegger, 1959, p.137). Meditative thought anchors our gaze in the present moment, so it would be in this withdrawal that we could best experience the atmosphere. This raises the question of 7 Jean-Marie Schaeffer links creation and reality through the use of possible derivatives of imitation for fiction, linking the verbs “to imitate, to reproduce, to represent, to resemble, to feign” (1999, p. 62). Proc. of the 17th International Symposium on CMMR, London, UK, Nov. 3-7, 2025 832 8 N. Cyrulnik, I. Singer, J.-P. Moreau, I. Trastevere, I. Castro, J. Elipe Gimeno, R. Bénard O’kelly, B. Hueto, R. Adjiman immersion : enveloping the body in an open narrative that leaves room for interpretation. Could we then talk about impregnating the atmosphere? There is a form of freedom in immersion that is established through a particularly active dialogue between the spectator and the space created by the work, in the manner described by Gilles Deleuze : Sensation has a side turned towards the subject (the nervous system, vital movement, “instinct”, “temperament”, a whole vocabulary common to Naturalism and Cézanne), and a side turned towards the object (“the fact”, the place, the event). Or rather, it has no sides at all, it is both things indissolubly, it is being-in-the-world, as the phenomenologists say: at once I become in sensation and something happens through sensation, one through the other, one in the other. [...] I, the spectator, experience sensation only by entering into the painting, by accessing the unity of the sensing and the felt (Deleuze, 1981-2002, p.39-40). In some frames, however, the use of music diversifies the status of the images by adding a dramatic and symbolic dimension of a different kind. In the fifth frame, for example, a doe stops in front of a bush in the middle of the frame. We might be tempted to enter a state of contemplation, but the deafening footsteps of the animals running past in the background, together with the music playing strident tones, engender an emotional brutality. This brutality confers a heavy atmosphere with an anguish felt in the difficulty of cognitive anchoring. A sensation of shock is created when the doe is killed by a gunshot, which provokes a nervous jolt with the violent appearance of the sound and the vision of the animal collapsing out of the frame. From the succession of these scenes, which are ultimately continuous and fluid, common questions emerge. The use of music appeals to the shared intimacy that in the film becomes a factor that influences the atmosphere. Another example of the use of music is represented by the sixth frame with the music of Madame Butterfly sung by Maria Callas. The calmness of the situation - the contemplation of a half-open window where the leaves of a tree are ruffled by the wind, and the movements and cawing of the crows on the windowsill - can help to bring back memories for spectators who have a personal history with this widely shared music. This intimate intrusion means that, in the end, it doesn't really matter whether this is a documentary, a fiction or an animated film, a question that seems to be very much at the heart of this film's intentions. What matters is the transport that the sequence provokes. The memories that flood back can project us elsewhere, move us, while at the same time arousing strong subjective emotions, which emanate from the atmosphere, in this case largely conditioned by the choice of music. In this way, the spectator brings everything that is with him into the atmosphere. With this sequence, another space opens up : that of memories, of a form of intimacy that can spring up at any moment for each spectator. In this mental, as well as physical, space, the atmosphere unfolds as ‘tuned space, i.e. a space with a certain mood.’ (Böhme, 2017, p.2) In addition to the use of familiar music that resonates in the viewer's collective imagination, the second factor that influences the creation of an atmosphere outside the present moment is the relationship to the memory of the frames, and to the overall shape of the film. 24 Frames develops through accumulation, with each frame of similar Proc. of the 17th International Symposium on CMMR, London, UK, Nov. 3-7, 2025 833 Spatial representation in 24 Frames as a condition for the emergence of atmosphere 9 length becoming a memory. As these frames are counted down, a kind of double injunction emerges, perhaps a contradictory one : one is about a certain detachment from the temporal unfolding of what we see and hear, the other says that time is directed towards a certain end, which is indicated in the very title of the work. What is the reason for this progression, this countdown ? And what is the logic behind the sequence of shots ? The countdown that punctuates each frame interrupts the linearity of perceived time and refocuses our attention. In this sense, the ambivalent temporality experienced in 24 Frames can be associated with Martin Heidegger's concepts of calculating and meditating thought. ‘There are thus two kinds of thought, each of which is both legitimate and necessary: calculating thought and meditating thought’ (Heidegger, 1959, p.136-137). Each frame proposes the exploration of a space, a scene, a temporality, situated in a continuous flow of sensations (meditating thought), structured in the long time of the form by the countdown of the ineluctable succession of each of the frames that make up the work, anticipated by the spectator who knows at any moment where he is situated in the space of the work's discursivity (calculating thought). 5. Atmospheres and narratives : questioning the Anthropocene The frames change but the atmosphere seems the same as the film progresses. There's a sense of wholeness that gradually builds up. The highly fragmented structure of 24 Frames allows us to observe two levels of atmospheric construction : on the scale of each frame, and on the scale of the film as a whole. There is an overhanging atmosphere that is created in particular by an open, vertical and non-causal narrative. In the fragmentation and immense interpretative freedom that the film creates, certain lines of force suggest continuities and discursivity, with different motifs or themes recurring and accumulating throughout the film. Between them, atmospheric phenomena have a very marked presence, such as snow in particular, but also rain, wind and mist - whose artificial quality is sometimes assumed (fake snow in front of the camera, fake snow on the Brueghel painting). They prevent clear vision and hide the bodies of animals. Sometimes they appear as a counterpoint (the lions that we are not used to seeing in the rain), making them all the more apparent. The viewer is continuously subjected to images charged with sensory atmospheric phenomena, which take us back to the cold or to tactile sensations experienced by our bodies. An atmosphere as a physical presence, an awakening of the viewer's body, emerges throughout the film by constancy and accumulation. But the collectionism of the set-up also suggests discursive layers, with the reiteration of the gesture of destruction/intervention on the image (meta-discursivity) and that of man's gesture of destruction in nature. Kiarostami proposes an awareness, or at least a sensitisation, to nature by showing it for almost two hours. This apprehension of natural landscapes gives rise to an ecological reflection that is assumed but not imposed. The importance attached to the animals and the absence of human presence in most of the frames seems to encourage the emergence of nonanthropocentric atmospheres. In the thirteenth frame, following a gunshot, a seagull falls, and another seagull comes to see it : a causality between the gunshot and the fall of the seagull is instantly Proc. of the 17th International Symposium on CMMR, London, UK, Nov. 3-7, 2025 834