moviereview - Earth

EARTH

	A feature length version of the acclaimed BBC wildlife documentary series, Planet Earth.	score 4	moviereview rates films from 1 (unwatchable) to 5 (unmissable)
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Cast
Whales, polar bears, lions, walrus and assorted birds

Director
Alastair Fothergill

Screenwriter
Documentary

Country
UK

Rating / Running Time
G / 96 minutes

Australian Release
May 2008

Official Site

Patrick Stewart stands in for David Attenborough in this feature length variant on the acclaimed TV series Planet Earth. Following the success of Deep Blue, Fothergill and co-director Mark Linfield spent five years filming the influence of the sun on life on Earth. They focussed their interest on three families - polar bears, humpback whales and African elephants - to illustrate how climate change affects all life. The results are simply dazzling.

Shot with state-of-the-art HD cameras, we’re brought perilously close to the grizzly end of many an untamed beast as they pursue their migratory habits. Habits which are, year on year, becoming an increasingly difficult ordeal as habitats continue to change with dizzying speed. While the consequences are heart breaking, the insight offered by Fothergill and team is wondrously jaw dropping.

Less so the clumsy narrative – life is precious, geddit? – and George Fenton’s enthusiastic score. Why the producers chose to jettison Attenborough’s breathy tones is a marketing mystery. While it doesn’t fully detract from the film’s tremendous cinematographic story telling, it adds little to thousand-word-imagery that already speaks eloquently for itself.

Such as an extended close-up of a leaping shark snatching a seal mid-air. Or a bear swimming for food. Or a pack of lions hunting at night - and so on down the list. All achieved without a digital composition in sight. Even the hoary chestnut of time-lapse forests-in-change is given an awe-inspiring refresher thanks to advanced technology.

This exquisite condensation of work from the BBC’s Natural History unit is packed with so many breath-taking moments that some cinemas risk structural collapse from depleted air resources. And there’s a wonderful irony in that. Don’t wait for DVD – this is a big screen experience.

// COLIN FRASER