Sunday, October 31, 2010

Life - BBC Documentary

One the best I have ever seen, period. Newsweek review:

"The product is an 11-part series that's nothing short of mind-blowing—a shocking view of just how vibrant and dynamic our terrestrial brethren actually are. Each installment captures a different strata of the planet's creatures—mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians, plants, primates, insects, hunters and the hunted, and creatures of the deep—in a series of stunning vignettes. Utilizing the best film technology ever employed and a seasoned score by British composer George Fenton, Life impressively captures the artistry and brutality of being alive.

And brutal it is—every day, a contest to acquire the limited resources needed for survival. It's a funny thing, really, to see the critters of the world in a mad scramble to best one another. With a subtle lesson in how evolution works, the series delivers the simple message that between hunting for food while at the same time not becoming food, life for almost all of Earth's species is actually really tough. But far from being morbid, the series instead offers a reassuring depiction of the natural ebb and flow of the life cycle, and how the realities of limited survival manage to squeeze out the weakest links. Seeing the methods that land and sea creatures have adopted to survive gives a clear picture of how they rose to the top of their gene pool, and the skills and features their departed aunts and uncles obviously lacked."

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