The BBC has always had a knack for finding previously unfilmed wonders – from Blue Planet’s ultra-slo-mo Great White Shark feed, to Planet Earth’s near-extinct snow leopard hunting a goat across a vertical cliff-face – and with Frozen Planet we see perhaps the culmination of the Natural History Unit’s expertly-crafted filmmaking.
It has took a few years to perfect this particular artistic ‘vision’ of the world, and while each series has focussed on particular aspects of nature – Human Planet, Life in the Undergrowth, Yellowstone, Wild China, Life in Cold Blood – Frozen Planet appears to be almost a culmination of this vision, merging the great seasonal narratives of Nature’s Great Events with the operatic majesty of Planet Earth and the technical scope of Life. The familiar images are all here, made all the more grandiose in high definition – the sun cresting over a satellite image of the planet from space, the dramatic, beautiful, intimate, comic overtures of the BBC Concert Orchestra marking each story or sequence – a polar bear dragging her little cubs into the wilderness for the first time, the delicate exchange of eggs between Emperor penguins. Then there are the time-captured panning shots of ice crystals freezing around an Arctic caterpillar, the great Northern rivers smashing forestbanks away in the Spring thaws, glaciers meting into waterfalls, as if the whole world is one constantly-evolving, transformative special effect.
David Attenborough is undoubtedly a national treasure, and his thespian-like gift for descriptive observation and drama – from the blood-strewn battle between a wolf and a bison through the snowy tundra of the Taiga, to a polar bear lying playfully in a twilit summer field – has made him one of British television’s greatest figures. The critical acclaim and gravitas following each groundbreaking series has also given Attenborough the chance to speak openly about Climate Change, its pros and cons, falsities and truths.
In the final episode, delayed from being aired in many countries because it was deemed too controversial for public consumption, Attenborough almost becomes God. As mountainous glaciers erupt from ice ranges and become icebergs as big as cities, he tells us that the natural world is going to heat up, temperatures will become more erratic, and these factors will have an effect on our species. He maintains that we must look beyond mere hypotheses and computer-predictions, towards a new framework in which to take care of our ecology. Attitudes to our world need to change. Even the pseudo-science of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth has become a thing of the past. The beauty and wonder of the Earth captured by the BBC is in danger, and it represents the fading away of species, the uncontrollable circumstances of our lands and oceans, documented for decades to come. With the evidence across these seven episodes, Sir David may prove to be right.
In that sense, then, Frozen Planet may be the most important documentary series ever made about the future of our planet.
Words by Chris Taylor
The music was composed by George fenton and played by the BBC CONCERT Orchestra, not the BBC Symphony Orchestra. The BBC CO has played for many of the BBC’s Natural History series and is the most versatile of all the BBC’s orchestras.
Oops! Thanks for pointing that out :) We have corrected this error.