Earth (2007, documentary) - Fothergill/Linfield's incredible nature spectacle is one to watch

♥♥♥♥♥

 

+ Best Nature Movie of the Year

 

Highlighting our planet and the three central animal families that Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield's Earth follows, this poster goes for the heart and takes it

 

From the polar bear's incredibly tedious walk for survival near the North Pole to the African Kalahari Desert, our planet's highest mountain peaks, greatest waterfalls and into the wonders of its rainforests, Earth takes us there.

This nature documentary, based on the popular BBC/Discovery documentary TV-series Planet Earth (2006), is technically impressive, made with state-of-the-art digital equipment. It uses only few overt editorial manipulations of its footage (like the changing of the seasons), which makes these stand out as somewhat ostentatious, and they could have been left out in my opinion.

The scene of the leopard's hunt on the savanna reaches mythical heights, whereas the later slow motion elongation of the whale footage only serves a wow-effect.

Still, there are only these minor quibbles to attach to this overall staggeringly beautiful, hypnotizing, simple and utterly human-less film, which leaves it up to its audiences to acquit or accuse humanity for the dire climate changes, it also portrays, (except for a few notes it gives towards the end.) In this subdued way, Earth chooses to stress the mysteries and beauties of nature over indignation at our sins against it.

The film's narration is written by Leslie Megahey (The Advocate (1993)), and the film is directed by Alastair Fothergill (Bears (2014)) and Mark Linfield (Monkey Kingdom (2015)).

 

Related post:

 

2007 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2007 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 47 mil. $

Box office: 108.9 mil. $

= Minor flop

[Earth premiered 14 July (Liechtenstein's Vaduz Film Festival) and runs 99 minutes (UK version) and 90 minutes (US version). The budget made Earth the most expensive documentary production ever, until Oceans (2009). Filming lasted from 2004-06. The two versions have different narrators: Patrick Stewart did the 9 minute longer UK version, while James Earl Jones narrated the shorter US version, which also uses a more dramatic score. The film has been called a 'companion' to the TV-series, which it relies heavily on for its footage. Reportedly around 30 % of Earth's footage is previously unseen. The film opened #5, behind fellow new release Obsessed, holdover hit 17 Again and new releases Fighting and The Soloist, to an 8.8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it left the top 5 in its second week and grossed 32 mil. $ (29.4 % of the total gross). While the film had no Russian or Chinese release and flopped incredibly in its native UK and in Australia, it made hefty business in other markets: The 2nd and 3rd biggest were Germany with 29.2 mil. $ (26.8 %) and Japan (where it was the most successful documentary in 10 years) with 23.2 mil. $ (21.3 %). It became the 2nd highest-grossing nature documentary of all time, behind March of the Penguins (2005) with 127.4 mil. $. It was nominated for a BAFTA. A celebrated Planet Earth II TV-series was made and released in 2016. A sequel, Earth: One Amazing Day (2017) has been released to a much smaller reception. Fothergill returned with African Cats (2011) and Linfield with Chimpanzee (2012). Earth is certified fresh at 86 % with a 7.2/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Earth?