Interview: Jessica Oreck (Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo)

Hardcover dictionaries, shoes, paper towels: these objects have no
hidden sinister purpose, and yet we in the West have no qualms about
using them as our instruments of evil when we come across an innocent
insect. Well, writer/director/producer/ Animator/American Museum
of Natural History Docent Jessica Oreck has set out to prove to us
that this doesn’t have to be the way, that it is not inevitable we
humans must battle insects. Ms. Oreck takes us to Japan in her
documentary, Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo, in order to show a society
that has found the beauty in insects and the advantages of living in
harmony with these oft misunderstood creatures. So, before you read
my interview with Jessica Oreck, forget what you’ve learned from Neil
Patrick Harris (STARSHIP TROOPERS), Jeff Goldblum (THE FLY), or Mira
Sorvino (MIMIC), for those actors starred in anti-insect propaganda
films that were meant to control rather than enlighten you…errrr,
something like that.

Stephen McNamee: Did your passion for insects and film occur
simultaneously after watching movies like STARSHIP TROOPERS or the
movie classic THEM [about giant, mutant ants that try and kill
everyone]?
Jessica Oreck: No. I have loved insects since I was little. Really
early on, I was collecting cockroaches and flies. I just loved
insects; I would pick anything up. So I knew that interested me, but
I knew I didn’t particularly want to be a scientist. I didn’t want to
focus too minutely on one particular thing, which is sort of the way
academia works these days. So, when I was 14 I saw David
Attenborough’s PRIVATE LIFE OF PLANTS, and it was a eureka moment for
me, and I realized “I’m meant to make movies about this! I’m not
meant to be a scientist. I’m meant to make movies about bugs and
other things in the natural world that really interest me.” Growing
up, I never watched any horror movies at all, so that never factored
into my decision. I really wanted to share my passion for insects
since it’s certainly not something that is popular in America. That
was my goal, not just with this project but with all projects I work
on: to reframe people’s ideas of the natural world.

McNamee: That lead’s into another question. Our view of the
natural world and insects, in particular, seems so greatly affected by
our culture, and yet you, who grew up in the West, seem not to have
had your view of insects tainted by Western views. How did you skip
that type of “discrimination”?
Oreck: I think a lot of it has to do with how you’re raised. My
parents always wanted us to get dirty. Because we didn’t watch TV,
they were constantly forcing us outside, trying to get us in the mud,
trying to get us to “scrape our knees,” to have experiences that have
to do with the real world, so I think that was a big influence.

It’s interesting: I work as a docent [lecturer] at the Natural History
Museum in the Butterfly Vivarium, and I can see children come in and
they are just thrilled to be in this place; it’s weird; it’s warm; it
smells different, and there are all these things floating around.
Most children just smile right away. And then, they watch their
parents, and their parents will duck when a butterfly comes by or move
away quickly or even sometimes scream, and instantly that changes the
kids’ reactions to when a butterfly lands on them. And it’s a
butterfly! It can hurt you at all! It’s an amazing process to watch:
this curiosity changing to fear just from the parents’ reaction.

McNamee: When you were in Japan, was there a difference in the way
someone living in a city viewed insects compared to someone living in
the country?
Oreck: The difference was that people in the city paid for insects and
people in the country hunted their own insects. That was really the
main difference. It didn’t really matter where the person was from;
they loved insects.

McNamee: Is it difficult to fit ethnobiologist/ entomologist/
filmmaker on a standard business card? What kind of font do you use?
Do you see yourself foremost as an ethnobiologist, entomologist, or
filmmaker?
Oreck: By American standards, I am no entomologist. I never went to
school for entomology. I’ve studied a lot of it in my spare time, and
I read a lot of entomology books, but I’m not an entomologist. I’d
like to think of myself as an ethnobiologist, but it’s the same thing:
if I said that in the academic world, people would not accept it, so I
guess I could say I’m a filmmaker, but I don’t really like that hat
either because I’m not interested in making films for film’s sake.
I’m interested in making films to inspire people to change the way
they think. That’s the grand goal, but I’m still young, so I’m very
optimistic. I guess I don’t really fit into any of those [groups],
and I’d like not to have to define myself by any of those
[entomologist, ethnobiologist, filmmaker] because I’m not sure I like
any of them on their own.

McNamee: I read in your director’s notes that you have a passion
for people living harmoniously with nature rather than having a
combative stance with the natural world. Do wish to inspire people to
live harmoniously with nature through film?
Oreck: I don’t want to actively set out to change someone else. I
hope that if somebody is open to it, they could see something in my
film that would help them feel a different way about nature, but I
don’t like the idea of seeing something and feeling that it is being
forced down your throat, like “this is meant to change the way you
feel about the environment” or “this is meant to change the way you
feel about gun control” or whatever it happens to be. That isn’t
something that interests me, so it’s a “hope” but not a “goal.”

McNamee: So “Beetle Queen” takes place in Japan, you have an
upcoming project that takes place in Eastern Europe [The Vanquishing of the Witch Baba Yaga] and
another film project in Finland [a “documentary that will present a
year in the life of the traditional reindeer herders of Finnish
Lapland”]. Do you just close your eyes and throw darts at a world map
to decide where your next project will take place?
Oreck: They just bubble up. I always wanted to go to Eastern Europe.
It’s fascinating: the clash of cultures there that are also so
harmonious at the same time. The way we group an entire section of
the world…it is like calling something “The Orient” the way we call it
“Eastern Europe.” We condense these incredibly diverse cultures into
the “Eastern Bloc” or “East of the Iron Curtain,” and yet each culture
is so unique. And, I’ve always been fascinated by mycology [the study
of fungi; the film centers around mushroom hunting and how woodland
areas affect warn-torn countries in Eastern Europe], and it sort of
just formed itself.

What I’m looking for are interesting places where people have a
relationship to the natural world that we don’t have in America. So
the reindeer herders in Lapland [Finland] are not like cowboys or
farmhands in America. The Lappish herders almost are cowboys in the
very old west sense of the word; they have this intuitive knowledge of
their surroundings; they know what the weather is going to be like;
they can sense when their herd is moving even when they can’t see it.
Some of them have a really amazing way of being in touch with nature.
To me, that was something I was instantly attracted to.

McNamee: Tell me about the animated series you’re working on?
Oreck: It’s about a one-minute show or webisode, or however one wants
it to be used. It’s about Dr. Starewicz who lives in the Natural
History Museum. He’s sort of a quirky character. He has no skin;
he’s just made of muscles and bones, and he walks in this weird way
and talks in this weird way. And, he loves answering strange
questions, like “what is earwax and where does it come from,” or “why
do cows chew their cud,” things that kids don’t know and most adults
don’t necessarily know…The idea was to make something that didn’t have
an age limit and that was weird enough to interest adults and still
simple enough to interest kids. And, I have a few episodes, but I
don’t have a venue for them yet.

McNamee: I see. So switching topics: what would be the coolest
insect tattoo a person could get?
Oreck: Wow, that’s tough because there are so many amazing insects.
It’s almost impossible to answer. There is an endless amount of
really awesome insects. I mean there’s the Atlas Moth, which is the
largest species of moth in the world, and it’s so beautiful and
amazing, and it has no mouth parts as an adult. So, it goes through
its larval stage and eats a ton as a caterpillar, and then it pupates
for several months, and then it emerges as this beautiful twelve-inch
adult, and it can’t eat or drink, and it just mates and lays eggs and
then starves to death. That’s its life cycle, but it’s an amazingly
beautiful moth. I mean many moths don’t have mouth parts, but I just
find that one fascinating.

Argot Pictures releases Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo in theaters this Wednesday at the Film Forum.