Given the recent deserved criticism of the Living Eden documentary on Borneo, I
thought a couple of words of praise for last night's Madagascar episode might
be in order. The photography was excellent and, unlike the previously mentioned
Borneo episode, most of the shots of some of the more difficult to see mammals
did not appear to have been taken in a zoo (the shots of porcupine, fishing cat
and so on in the Borneo episode were almost certainly taken at Singapore
Nocturnal Zoo!). Borneo was really an unfortunate case of documentary making by
numbers, I feel. In this one we got a reasonably balanced account of a wide
range of mammals, birds, herps and insects. Again, a welcome change from the
obsession with glamour species in Borneo - definitely a case of deja vu in
terms of documentary watching. I still have a couple of criticisms, however -
why the godawful music? I found it very irritating. Why the add-in sound
effects? Do they really expect us to believe that Tomato Frog !
made that swallowing noise, for example. And given the superb shot of the
Madagascar Paradise-flycatchers, why not name them as a number of other birds
were named (a refreshing change)? More importantly - again, conservation issues
were overlooked although it was really nice to see the local guides getting
their names on the end credits, as they should. All that said, the photography
of the Aye-aye and Fossa amongst others brought back memories of my visit to
what IMHO is one of the most fabulous places on earth and a place that every
naturalist has to see to believe.
Susan Myers
To unsubscribe from this list, please send a message to
Include ONLY "unsubscribe birding-aus" in the message body (without the
quotes)
|
