Co-financed by WWF (World Wildlife Fund), one of the most powerful environmental NGOs, and the production companies Silverback Films and Netflix, the project benefited from significant resources. In fact, it is the largest documentary series produced to date, with more than 600 film crew members, 50 countries covered, a budget of several tens of millions of dollars and years of filming, thus outperforming all BBC productions. Even new technologies have been used to obtain unique plans such as vehicle-mounted cameras, motion-detecting cameras and 4K drones.
The series consists of 8 episodes, the first of which is an introduction. Each episode explores in turn the forest, deep waters, frozen worlds and jungles without stunning the viewer with figures or apocalyptic sentences about the extinction of species as other documentaries have done before. However, the distress of the situation is realized through the breathtaking shots such as the one at the end of the first episode when, set to calming classical strings, kilometer long icebergs implode off the shores of Greenland. «What we do in the next 20 years will determine the future for all life on Earth», says the narrator. And that is the main purpose of this production; to make the audience aware of the alarming reality that awaits us.
In addition, naturalist David Attenborough has lent his voice to the English version and brings a very appreciable scientific touch to it. He explains very clearly how nature perfectly regulates itself, how elephants pass on their knowledge from generation to generation or even describes surrealist bridal parades of exotic birds. But more importantly, he reminds us why human’s action is destroying this incredibly rich and therefore precious world of ours, and why we all need to act quickly to delay the disaster.
The show is available since the beginning of April only on Netflix. Whether you are passionate about nature, storytelling or beautiful images, this series will not disappoint you. And the message it carries is crucial for our time.
