There are two endangered species native to the Pyrenees featured in this immersive and rather beautiful documentary shot in Ariège, southwestern France, by British film-maker Max Keegan. The first is the brown bear, which was hunted out of existence in the region by the early 2000s. Now the bears are back, around 70 of them, thanks to efforts by conservationists backed by the European Union. The film opens with footage of a 200kg delivery by helicopter, lowering a crate on to the mountainside out of which a bear comes thundering out.

The airmail delivery is necessary because of local opposition – farmers are barricading the roads, painting “no to bears” on the tarmac, saying that bears kill their livestock. Shepherd Yves, 63 – flat cap, cigarette dangling from his mouth – is against the reintroduction of the bears. He is training Lisa, a shepherd in her 20s, but their way of life is the other endangered species, with few young people joining the industry.

In the local bar, an expert on the TV explains that 85% of a brown bear’s diet is vegetarian, and protein mostly comes from insects and other small creatures. “Pah!” say the shepherds, who have woken up to find their sheep half-eaten, sometimes still breathing. Whichever side of the argument you instinctively find yourself on – team bear or team shepherd – the film resists snap judgments. Keegan shot the footage over three years, and the locals clearly see him as part of the furniture and ignore the camera.

We hear a slightly hectoring pro-bear commentator on TV say that we humans must to learn to live in harmony with the natural world. Tell that to the shepherds, who are constantly outdoors, with the changing mood of seasons breathtakingly captured by Keegan and his co-director of photography Clément Beauvois. But then a farmer is taken by her budding wildlife photographer son to view a bear and its two cubs, and is awestruck by the beauty of it. There are no easy answers here.

• The Shepherd and the Bear is in UK cinemas from 6 February.