Niles Atallah Interview – Director of ‘Animalia Paradoxa’

Niles Atallah’s Animalia Paradoxa feels like the start of a bizarre dream that is about to become a nightmare. An unnamed creature moves around a post-apocalyptic world without explanation of how “it” got there or where it’s going. It interacts with other creatures, exchanging gifts with a mysterious hand and observing a group that chants religious texts.

The dream never actually becomes a nightmare. The world Atallah has created might be born out of violence, but he doesn’t seem to be interested in that side of it. Instead, his film functions as a “dream-level” examination of the concept of an apocalypse. Almost as if to ask, is there a way to exist when the conditions for existing are not there? And more importantly, could it be that so many people in the world are navigating these same feelings as they live in an apocalypse-like world?

Would you say your film is political?

Yes, all films are political. Consciously it’s a political film, but it’s not a flag-waving exercise. It’s meant to work on a dream level, which is where fantasy works. 

The film implies violence, previous violence. Violence is always outside the frame. The question is, is it Gaza? Is this what’s left? I made the film before what was happening in Gaza started. My family is Palestinian, [we’re] part of the Palestinian diaspora in Chile. I didn’t make the film with that in mind, but of course, it’s part of my cultural baggage and heritage. It’s like this kind of constant apocalyptic violence that is always latent. Will it always be latent, or will it eventually erupt into something that will destroy us? 

That said, I’m not really interested in a particular political thesis. The films that I love and that I’m interested in making are films that have the intention of navigating uncharted waters. 

I was also always drawn to making a film about the end of the world. In Latin, “apocalypse” means revelation. It’s like this idea that when the ocean dries up, the seafloor is exposed. In the same way, an apocalypse allows us to better see our present state. Our fears are always hiding our deepest treasures. What we feel are horrors are the things that create a rip in the fabric.

If we remain grounded in reality and look at things concretely, obviously, we’re all going to be entrenched in our daily cultural codes. It’s like being in a labyrinth that prevents you from seeing what’s outside. But when we engage our imagination, we could possibly, maybe, trigger a different perspective within the prison that we’re in. Our imaginations are particularly fertile when it comes to the morbid. I find that the best part of the Divine Comedy is when Dante goes to hell.

It seems religion, much like a cockroach, outlasted the apocalypse. What was the importance of religion in the film?

Religion, in the form of spiritual inquietude and confusion, is always present in one way or another. It’s a bridge between the divine and the physical. It asks important questions like: where are we going? When we’re gone, will our dreams continue? 

If I had to describe it, I would say Animalia Paradoxa is a mix between a nature documentary and a twisted Fellini-esc circus or a Dada performance. It’s a fairy tale, just like the Little Mermaid. 

“Animalia Paradoxa is a mix between a nature documentary and a twisted Fellini-esc circus or a Dada performance.”

Because what happens when we lose our capacity to dream? That’s an apocalypse of sorts. One of the most serious problems right now is that there’s a major drought in poetic communication. There is an obsession with being literal, materialist. We forget the meaning of the words like imagination. We have a hard time inhabiting contradiction. 

So many different spiritual beliefs and practices point to this phenomenon, such as: don’t worship false gods. If you don’t pay attention to what you’re worshiping, you’ll end up worshiping something that will drive you to the ground. As humans, we inevitably have to worship something. But what happens when we worship capitalism? And when we worship productivity? And when we worship money? 

William Blake spoke about this: in the modern era, be careful even with science. Be careful that it doesn’t become another religion. So yeah, we need to make sure that we’re worshiping something that will set us free and will not enslave us.

Luckily, we’re still the same, we have the same brain that both created the crusade and worshiped things that we know to not be rational. 

What can we do to reconnect with our dreaming selves?

What we haven’t done is plunge deep into the ocean of who we are. Dadaism, which was born out of World War I, came from the same problem. According to the movement, when language is ravaged by academics and journalists, and when it is taken out of its imaginary and poetic context, then it finds refuge in the mouths of children and mad poets. The Dadas were saying this in 1914, 110 years ago. 

What you can do is be careful with what you believe is rational. If you worship rationalism, you’re just worshiping another icon and you don’t even know it. 

Animalia Paradoxa is the landscape of what happens when dreaming is dead. What you still find amongst the rubble is that there are still dreaming animals that are there. They’re keeping the flame alive.