The concept of wonder is too omnicomprehensive for non-fiction cinema from the origins. At such a point, we believe that the concept permeates non-fiction films, wherefrom it is almost indistinguishable; thus, the concept of wonder is at the core of most of these films, and risks becoming a concept without influence, taken for granted and non-characterising.

On the other hand, it is true that it is a concept that one tends to forget or at least to not feel at first hand, deprived as we are of the capacity to still wonder at the moving images, for too long victims of the original sin of cinema. There are only a few moments which can restore this emotion to us. We may individualise them in the incredible colours of some stencil coloured films; in the cruelty of the separation of the siamese sisters, in the marvellous technology of certain films about agriculture, the sea, and new arms; or in the almost virgin exoticism of the films from the very first years of the century. Or perhaps we can gauge the concept from those films which are clearly destined to show the “new medium” rather than the image: flowers which bloom, waves which break, suns which rise or set. They are moments wherein the medium becomes completely “opaque”, wherein that which is shown is cinema at work, and where there is nothing left to do besides seeing the wonder experienced by the public -a public which apparently has a great fascination for these films, seen as they continued to be produced even when they were considered to have been “overtaken”.