''Rodents of Unusual Size'' is a 2017

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

funded by

ITVS ITVS (Independent Television Service) is a service in the United States which funds and presents documentaries on public television through distribution by PBS and American Public Television, new media projects on the Internet, and the weekly seri ...

and directed by the team of Quinn Costello,

Chris Metzler Chris Metzler (born May 23, 1974) is an American film director known for documentaries. His documentary '' Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone'' (2010) is listed in the 100 Best Documentaries ranked by the Tomatometer at Rotten Tomatoes Ea ...

and

Jeff Springer ''Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea'' is a documentary film by Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer, with narration by John Waters and music by Friends of Dean Martinez. This often humorous documentary tells the story of the accidental lake and ...

about giant invasive swamp rats, nutria, threatening coastal

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

. The film is narrated by Wendell Pierce with an all original musical soundtrack by the Cajun band

Lost Bayou Ramblers Lost Bayou Ramblers is a Cajun music band from Broussard, Arnaudville and New Orleans, Louisiana. Career Lost Bayou Ramblers was born deep in South Louisiana performing old style, predominantly acoustic Cajun music at clubs and festivals acros ...

. This feature-length film premiered during the 2017 version of the all documentary film festival DOC NYC, on 15 November 2017. The film was released by Grasshopper Film and broadcast on the PBS TV series

Independent Lens ''Independent Lens'' is a weekly television series airing on PBS featuring documentary films made by independent filmmakers. Past seasons of ''Independent Lens'' were hosted by Angela Bassett, Don Cheadle, Susan Sarandon, Edie Falco, Terrence Ho ...

on 14 January 2019.

Synopsis

residents south of

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

have faced many an environmental threat, from oil spills to devastating hurricanes, but a growing problem are an invasive species known as nutria or colloquially called swamp rats in the region. This invasive species from South America is accelerating erosion of the state's coastal wetlands, already one of the largest disappearing landmasses in the world. The film covers the people (trappers, chefs, fashion designers, exotic pet enthusiasts) who have lived in the area for generations and are fighting back in creative ways. The film winds up being a joyful take on an ecological menace while revealing, in equal parts, human beings' impact on the environment and the local communities' surprising solutions to save their land before it disappears. Through the offbeat and unexpected stories of the people confronting the nutria problem, ''Rodents of Unusual Size'' examines issues surrounding

coastal erosion Coastal erosion is the loss or displacement of land, or the long-term removal of sediment and rocks along the coastline due to the action of waves, currents, tides, wind-driven water, waterborne ice, or other impacts of storms. The landward ...

, the devastation surrounding hurricanes, loss of culture and homeland, and the resilience of the human spirit.

Reception

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

it has a weighted average score of 65 out of 100, based on 8 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Rodents of Unusual Size American documentary films Documentary films about Louisiana Documentary films about United States history 2017 documentary films 2017 films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films