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Summary: All Life has to offer
Review: All of the adventures, struggles and joys life has to offer are brought dramatically to the screen in this true life adventure. Lessons are to be learned and analogies drawn through watching that we are not the only species with heartbreaking travails and triumphs.
To me this film reminds us that we can't take anything for granted.
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Summary: beautiful !!!!!!!!!!!
Review: buy this film !!! there are no words that can describe how beautiful this film is !!
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Summary: Kids ***LOVED*** it!!!
Review: Great for adults (I won't repeat the other reviews), but my 3-year-old son and his 3-7 year-old cousins were GLUED to the TV. It was wonderful to have an kid-entertaining video that just presents nature as it is. Unlike documentaries, no words are really required for it. It also shifts from one scene to another quickly enough to retain the interest of pre-schoolers.I rented it, and now I'm buying it. Would prefer DVD, but will get the VHS for now.
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Summary: A feast of pure instinct
Review: Here we see insects of various types, doing just what they are supposed to do. Living, by way of pure instinct. For those fascinated by Nature and it's ways, this film will provide a great deal of joy. For the rest of us, the lack of narrative gives us a field for pure interpretation. There is no set meaning to this plot. Indeed, nature is amoral( how to find morality in a 'bug - eat - bug world' ), yet beautiful in the unselfconscious expression of it's varied purposive ends. The fact that it is nature( the amoral ) which provides the field and sustinance by which the human species( and it's frail morality ) is supported, is even more fascinating.
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Summary: Unreal
Review: I can't wait until this comes out on DVD. Microcosmos is a visual and sound explosion of nature.
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Summary: Metamorphosis
Review: I have never been particularly interested in bugs. In fact, I have in most cases viewed them with a mixture of disgust, disinterest or (in the case of flies and mosquitoes, particularly) loathing. After watching this film, I want to become an amateur entomologist. It really is that revelatory and inspiring. A team of Swiss, Italian and French cinematographers and naturalists take us to a lush meadow in the south of France and reveal, through microphotography, the unseen (or at least, generally unnoticed) inhabitants at work and play there.
This is nature documentary at its finest. Insects that we all take for granted are displayed close-up, and are revealed to be perfect in their symmetry of form, their coloration, their awesome design. It does give one a renewed sense of appreciation for creation in all its myriad forms: nature is diverse and abundantly versatile. The film's creators, by supplying a sometimes playful, sometimes dramatic, soundtrack, add to the anthropomorphic qualities of the micro vignettes. For instance, the long, languid scene depicting snails mating is accompanied by a Puccini aria. Though this may sound trite (how many Puccini arias have been overused in recent years?), even loathsome, if one had the opinion of snails as slimy, ugly creatures that I had, it is instead one of the most beautiful, and dare I say, sensuous, scenes I've ever witnessed. Instead of noxious looking, the snails are beautiful, their intricately shaded and colored shells gleaming , as they engage in a pas-de-deux that would put Nureyev and Fonteyne to shame. Also especially memorable is the segment involving a dung beetle, doggedly engaged in rolling a ball of dung up a slope of gravel. As he plods on, one can't help but admire his determination and his fortitude. He is a miniature Sisyphus, engaged in an eternal struggle in his uphill battle for survival. The ball of dung (about five times his size) becomes stuck on a sharp shoot sticking up out of the ground. He doesn't know why the ball won't move, yet he doesn't give up. He rolls and prods and shoves until finally he goes over to the side on which the ball is stuck and succeeds in removing it. Nature rewards perseverance. Actually, this could be thought of as one of the themes of the movie. All of these Hymenoptera, Neuropterans, and Heptira, etc., are hard workers, ceaselessly engaged in what they were put on earth to do. Even the most detested of insects, the mosquito, is shown to be a part of the grand design at the conclusion of the film. In one of the marvelous time-lapse birth sequences that are a thread in the movie, a mosquito is shown forming from its larval stage on the surface of a pond. The viewer is not sure exactly what sort of creature it is until it finally flies off and we hear its all-too-familiar buzzing. One way of thinking of this film is that it is the Cirque de Soleil of nature documentaries. The same sort of outside the box creativity went into this production. It's magnificent in every respect and should be seen and appreciated by viewers of all ages.
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Summary: It made me laugh and giggle
Review: I liked it a lot. Also some of it was funny. I went to it for my birthday party. It was a good present!
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Summary: the most gorgeous nature film I've ever seen
Review: I read so much about Microcosmos in Amazon reviews that I just had to get a copy and see it for myself. It's incredible! Count me among those who say, "how did they do that?"
As a newly-hatched insect fan, I was delighted and stunned by the spectacular photography, the moments of comedy (caterpillar traffic jam, ladybug getting bounced off the leaf), the sheer beauty of the material, and the way the cinematographers were able to catch things from the insect's point of view. I also appreciated the lack of the typical nature-film voiceovers; the producers had the good sense to let the images, music and sound effects carry the film on their own.
Don't miss this one, whether you love or hate insects. It's a revelation.
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Summary: Great as background for an offbeat kinda party
Review: I rented this video, because I had heard lots of good things about it. However, it was with the assumption that I was not going to sit in front of the TV for the duration of the film, but rather, that I would play the video while going about my business at home, and check to see what was on the screen from time to time. Much to my surprise, I found myself stopping in front of the TV, unable to pull myself away, especially when I witnessed what looked like a black beetle, as he vigorously strove to move a rock to an obviously desired location (perhaps his "home"?). I was in awe of his determination, as each time the rock would rock backwards, he would start all over again, and kept at it, until he got the rock to where he wanted it. I was also amazed at the way the film was able to depict the beauty of insects, many of which I would consider "yucky" in the real world. I always knew that insects were amazing, and that ants in particular were highly organized, but I don't think I'll ever look at insects quite the same way again!
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Summary: Everyone loves it - the people of the grass
Review: I saw this movie 4 years ago in Paris and never forgot it. The music is great and the insects are mesmerizing. It is the kind of movie that even those who never watch a film twice, will want to see again.
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