A Life on Our Planet
I rarely watch films as my attention span is usually quite short and I have never had any reason to discuss films with others but this was quite frankly the greatest film I have ever watched!
Sir David Attenborough described this film as his "Witness Statement" I think it is far more than that, the film starts in Pripyat, the abandoned city of 50,000 by the ill-fated Chernobyl nuclear power plant. This was described as an accident caused by "Human error", we then see how nature has reclaimed the city and how local wildlife including some mammals live there. From there Attenborough shows us his broadcasting career from when he started making documentaries in the 50s to the present day. Every 20 mins there was a screen showing the year, the population, the carbon dioxide concentration and the percentage of land still natural habitat. It was in the 70s on a documentary about the oceans that Attenborough started to see that something was wrong when he encountered whaling and overfishing. In the 90s the first signs that something was wrong with the climate when he saw coral reefs bleaching. He then went on to show what would happen if we continue abusing the earth and he did so in a way only he could. A horror movie even worse than Saw or Blair Witch: our earth even by the 2030s. This was so bad that I had to look away and I wanted to run out of the cinema and then Attenborough gave us hope: some really simple ways that we can avoid this. Eat less meat, don't have too many children, avoid waste: be this food, packaging or even time. Look at what Morocco are doing with their solar array, look at what Costa Rica are doing with their nature reserves, look at what the Netherlands are doing with their sustainable farming, they are the second largest exporter of food!
The second half of the viewing (at least for those of us watching at cinemas, not sure if Netflix viewers will ever get to see this) was a 50 mins Q&A, this was supposed to be a live event at the Royal Albert Hall. Alas, the pandemic scuppered those plans so instead we had this lovely conversation between Attenborough and Sir Michael Palin. Two of the greatest minds of our time and two of the funniest (I knew Palin was funny because of Monty Python but Attenborough was also very witty despite him now being 94). They answered many of the questions those of us watching had: what was it like to film? Is this your final work? And answered some of the questions we didn't know we had: what was the funniest encounter with a fan you have ever had (David's included a trip to Borneo and a massive tattoo of his face, Michael's included being mistook for Eric Idle). I came in at 6:50 for a 7pm start, I was out at 9pm and it took me a while to gather my emotions and even longer to write this (if you are still reading by this point - well done!) It also made me think about my role in all this, where do I fit in? Myself and my parents have decided to have more vegetarian food, plan meals to ensure less waste and try to go to fast food chains a little less. I hope that when this film comes out on Netflix that those of you who subscribe to it watch this film and are inspired to make some changes to your lives!
