Documentary

For many years, scientists stumbled upon evidence that even the tropics were covered with a thick layer of ice six hundred million years ago. All of this evidence of a so-called Snow Ball Earth was dismissed with the simple argument that the drifting of the continents through geological ages should explain such a phenomena.

This 2001 BBC Horizon documentary shows the evidences for the theory and how life - by the time only cyan bacteria and algae - could survive under such harsh conditions.

Although a great number of objections have been raised against the theory, there are still a number of scientists who agree some level of “snowball earth” effect occurred on the geological time covered.

Simple yet objective, the theories are explained with humor and a competent footage, and, although the scientists don’t agree yet about the theme, it’s a decent insight in how science is made and how the scientific process work.

Total Time: 50 minutes.

Recommendation: Good. 

We would be better off with less sentimentalism, but this is still an astonishing beautiful documentary about migrating birds. The narrative, always showing the birds view is beautifully illustrated by a handful of flying birds footage and some scarce data from the human narrator. Some scenes are among the most spectacular you will ever see on a documentary, namely those ones shot accompanying the migrating birds as a part of the migrating herd.

• Direction - Jacques Perrin
• Co-direction Jacques Cluzaud e Michel Debats
• Narration - Jacques Perrin
• Screenplay - Stéphane Durand e Jacques Perrin
• Production - Christophe Barratier e Jacques Perrin
• Executive Production - Jean De Trégomain

Total time: 85 minutes.

Recommendation: Must see.