In a world in which groundbreaking, long-lens nature documentaries with crisp 8k footage are a dime a dozen, why turn to something as rudimentary as Super 8? Well, no offence to the work of David Attenborough, but with this charming documentary about the magic of the natural world, director and editor Ed Sayers shows us why. It’s something to do with the journey as well as the destination. As amateur filmmakers from all corners of the globe shoot everything from “persnickety” desert quail scurrying just out of sight at Joshua Tree, to painfully slow silkworms, to the world’s last two northern white rhinos in Kenya, there’s a sense that they are capturing not just wildlife, but something integral to themselves.
When Sayers, a British music video and ad director, was a kid he filmed family events with a Super 8 camera and fell in love with the format, later setting up the Straight 8 filmmaking competition. At the end of the summer, watching back your Super 8 footage was, he says wistfully in the film’s preamble, “like someone had painted your memories”.
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It is surely no coincidence that the production of this film, Sayers’ first feature (executive-produced by Asif Kapadia) started in 2020, as Covid-19 was sweeping the world, lockdowns entrenching a sense of isolation. Inspired by the beautifully intimate flamingo footage of one of his Straight 8 entrants, Sayers asked 40 filmmakers from across 25 countries to send in wildlife reels. The result is this sweeping vision of global flora and fauna, from feral reindeer in Norway and sea dragons in Tasmania, iguanas in Mexico and depleted bison herds in Yellowstone to the frighteningly visible impact of climate change: retreating glaciers in Italy, wildfires raging in France and disappearing trout on the Isle of Lewis.
It’s a cohesive and moving portrait of a planet we share with living things that we have forgotten how to preserve, let alone observe properly, and the limitations of the format are a surprising boon to a film intent on hammering home this simple but central connection. What comes across over and over again in these grainy little snippets, accompanied by gently crackling audio, presumably recorded separately and mixed in editing, is the proximity of the cameraman to its subject, a necessary function of the wide-angle lens. There’s a patience and care required, too, when you’re using film cartridges that run out every two minutes. There’s also a sense that the lack of audio (while filming) was a help not a hindrance. Using Super 8 is a “relief”, admits elderly Pinny in London, who compares it to taking out her hearing aids. “The background chatter can just stop and you can just watch.”
Just occasionally the film veers off into commentary that’s a little cloying (“We had just been given a hug by nature. I guess they call her Mother Nature for a reason”). But largely it manages to be affectionate without becoming fanatical or didactic, an immersive reminder to look up at the incredible creatures around us, and at each other, and as effective a love letter to celluloid as anything from JJ Abrams.
