Review: Planet Earth

Ep. 1: From Pole to Pole

Seen 4/24/15

3/4

The BBC's nature doc is off to a terrific start.
The feel of this 2006 British series is a bit dated and distant compared to its competitors; however, that shows up mostly just in the narration and the musical score. The age of the filming itself is hardly noticeable, at least to my somewhat-uneducated eyes. We have become greedy nowadays, with the Hollywood big-budgeters and Terrence Malicks of the world lighting up the screen in blinding color. Of course, watching BBC depict nature's glory with the definition of modern film would be something like heaven, but I'm willing to cope.
The most incredible part about the series so far is the filmmakers' ability to capture the intimate, the colossal, and the isolated parts of nature. It is unbelievable to me how this could have happened, and I plan to watch the accompanying special features sometime in my life.

The first episode began at the South Pole, jumped up to the North quickly and then worked its way all the way back down while our tough old Emperor penguins were bearing their winter. There were numerous predator-prey stories-- a staple of nature-documentary-filmmaking. Shockingly, the first such instance, which arrives right at the start of the film, ended in an unsympathetic victory of evil! The predator caught its lovable prey, bit into it, and the narrator moved on to an entirely different biome! It was fascinatingly heartless. Similar things happened throughout the show, and what I learned is a necessity to see nature as victimless. If you go through this whole series believing that there are good guys and bad guys, you are bound to be depressed beyond rescue by the end. It is almost not enough to accept "Nature is tough. Survival of the fittest." You must see how easily we are psychologically pulled as viewers of a nature documentary, and that none of the morality we attach to the events onscreen is legitimate. Zero.

With this in mind, it becomes respectable how willing the film is to show what we would consider horror. It's not that it doesn't accelerate in us an emotional pulse (it does this with the dramatic musical score, and the choice of who to film and in what environment cunningly creates good and evil)--- it's that the pulse is created and propelled with such force that when it comes to a screeching halt in the terrifying death of a cute animal, which is handled with such intentional nonchalance, we are left breathless and devastated.

I respect this and I don't want it, all at the same time. The tragedies really don't feel good, but it is probably necessary education for the sheltered individuals who will be watching this, including me.

The most fulfilling part of the film for me is simply the exposure to nature--- different kinds of animals, interesting and foreign biomes, universal amorality.... This is a new and extremely valuable part of my intellectual life, I am realizing. I will surely continue this path, and with great joy, interest, and self-development. The quality of the filmmaking is secondary; the exposure to nature entirely makes this experience.