Voy tomando nota. Este sale en noviembre
This five-part natural history documentary series is simply breathtaking. It features some of the best wildlife / natural environment filming ever seen while telling a complicated story about the massive weather system which dominates a massive area of the planet, and has far-reaching effects on all forms of life. It’s gorgeous to look at, with plenty of factual info to engage your interest.
Each episode runs to 50 minutes, with a ten-minute behind-the-scenes filler / making-of as an added bonus. We’re shown how the cycle of rain affects not just the obvious countries like India, famous for its massive monsoon season, but how its influence is far more wide-reaching. The under-sea aspects are fascinating, for instance; rare footage of blue whales coming to feed on the bounty delivered when the floods spill out into the deep ocean. Likewise the effects of the monsoon on Australia, often overlooked.
The majority of the filming concentrates on the countries which veer between drought and deluge, some of them losing over 70% of their landmass to water inundation during the wet season. The time-lapse photography is astonishing here; watching a river or lake swell to ten times its normal size – or the awesome sight of a rain front sweeping across mountains and cloaking everything in grey mist – or the transformation from dry, rocky desert to lush green landscape.
The films follow different animals and how they’re affected by the rainy season; these clips include some cute footage of tiger cubs and baby elephants; far less cute film of mosquitos, and bats being snapped up by hungry crocodiles when they dare to dip their wings in muddy water. it doesn’t just follow the wildlife: a substantial proportion of the series is given over to how the rain cycle affects the lives, health and culture of the local population.
There’s no on-screen presenter, instead the voice-over is delivered with unseen style by Colin Salmon. It’s quite refreshing, not watching a celeb performing for the camera but instead concentrating on the documentary subject. The soundtrack is a bit intrusive, however; not the music, but the sound effects which sometimes are plainly added afterwards in the studio. To their credit, the film-makers come clean in the making-of to explain the rare times they have to ‘create’ footage in the lab rather than in the wild.
There are some sequences which are repeated in slo-mo a little too often, where obviously the producers were so delighted to capture a sequence that they keep on showing it. But this doesn’t detract from the overall quality and impact of the whole series.
If you have a high-resolution screen then it’s definitely worth getting the Blu-ray version to get the full impact of the visuals.
9/10
Cierto, pero creeme que se notaba el cambio en comparación con la voz que tenía en Planet Earth y Frozen Planet.
