Earth

Tonight Raven and I started watching Earth, the documentary nature series about life on our planet in various climates and regions. It is a second watching for me (at least in full, I have seen a few of the pieces many times on their own) and I have to tell you I love it just as much this time through the last. It should be clear from the start that I love documentaries of basically all types. About basically anything.

My first watch through of Earth came during college when my one of my best friends, Crane, got the full DVD series. And then showed it in our common area every night for a few weeks. It was glorious to watch en masse, with many of us poking fun at animals we saw on screen or more often staring entranced by the beauty of the scenery before us and the incomparable calm of David Attenborough's melodious voice.

Nature documentaries have become a staple of my life since taking up as a nanny. Both children love animals and the natural world and with non-educational screen time restricted by parents, both the kids enjoy watching nature documentaries. I'll admit I enjoy them a lot more than many of the alternatives they could choose (both educational and non-educational) so I tend to encourage this habit. But I have learned something interesting from watching all these shows about nature with so many different audiences (Crane is a biologist, Raven an anthropologist, and my kids are just kids). There are some things we all hold in common in the face of the natural world and they aren't the things I expected. I expected cute animals would make basically everyone coo and that the 7-year-old with a soft spot for her cats wouldn't like animals like sharks or wolves that preyed on seals or bears, respectively. Turns out I underestimated her. She understood and accepted the cycle of life far better than I did in some cases (it's hard to watch an adorable bear cub get attacked!) I also figured that younger kids would get more entertainment out of the animal portions and less out of the sweeping vistas and glorious panoramic shots of the scenery, Wrong again. A common thread I have seen with anyone watching a video like Earth is the appreciation of the world's beauty. A great snow-swept landscape is beautiful at 6 or 106.

I hope the kids I watch don't lose their wonder at the world they live in. I hope I can hold onto mine. I am so glad Raven shares that wonder with me. And that she will help me nurture and hold that wonder by reminding me that sometimes I need to immerse myself in reality when I tune out the world.


Good night all.

~Owl

Monkey Kingdom

Hi Owl,

Now that we've started taking weekends off, I get forgetful. It's hard to get back into the swing of posting on Mondays! So, since we've fallen a bit behind, we're both posting tonight.

Owl and I have a tradition of going to the movies on Tuesdays when we both have time. Some of the local theaters have $5 movies every Tuesday, and we can generally find something interesting. This week we talked about seeing The Woman in Gold, but changed our plans at the last minute.

Instead, we went to see Monkey Kingdom. While this is a far cry from The Woman in Gold, it had its advantages as a favorite front-runner for tonight's viewing: it's short (82 minutes) and we were both exhausted, it's educational, though albeit targeted to a younger audience, and most importantly, proceeds from ticket sales this week were donated to Conservation International, to help protect forests in India, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka.

In 2008, Walt Disney Studios founded an independent film label, Disneynature. Specializing in nature documentaries, Disneynature has, as of this week, released eight feature films, with another one in the works for 2016. Generally released to coincide with Earth Day, these films are released not only to show off masterful cinematography and cute animal stories, but also to raise awareness for conservation efforts world-wide. Proceeds from tickets sold in the first week of each of the eight film releases have gone to support various conservation efforts. For instance, last year's release, Bears, followed a family of grizzly bears in Alaska, and proceeds went to support the National Park Foundation.  Bears was our first introduction to Disneynature, and part of what made us so eager to see Monkey Kingdom. The 2010 movie Oceans donated first-week ticket sale proceeds to The Nature Conservancy, in an effort to save coral reefs and establish new protected marine areas in the Bahamas. And anybody who goes to see Monkey Kingdom this week will help to support Conservation International. Tina Fey, the narrator of Monkey Kingdom, is just the latest in a line of big-ticket actors that have lent their talent to Disneynature, including James Earl Jones, Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Samuel L. Jackson.

These documentaries are clearly aimed at younger children. They are tied together with strong, if exaggerated, narratives, and the anthropomorphic characterizations of the animals does call to mind the typical Disney "cutification" of often grim subjects. After all, if Disney can turn Grimm's fairy tales into whimsical romps through wonderland, turning the harsh realities of life in the (non-human) animal kingdom should be a natural step for them. From a scientific standpoint I object on principle to personifying bears and sharks and even our relatively close monkey cousins in overly-anthropomorphic ways, but from a story-telling standpoint, I applaud Disneynature on their ability to spin a concrete, compelling story out of the vast tangle of footage.

And speaking of footage, the real highlight of these documentaries, for me, is the cinematography. The intense dedication and inspired eye these cinematographers have shows clearly in the breathtaking array of visually scintillating compositions. My mom and I have long shared grand daydreams of photographic nature and wildlife for National Geographic, and seeing the incredible opportunities these photographers and cinematographers have as they film makes me want to pack my bags right now and join them. From close-up shots of intimate moments in the complex hierarchy of the macaque monkeys to aerial shots of sprawling forests and towering ruins, to action shots of the urban jungles of Polonnaruwa, the cinematography is astonishingly varied and consistently delightful.

Monkey Kingdom isn't going to win any awards for best script. But it was beautiful, fun, educational, and it made me think. About the earth, about humanity's place in a vast and ineffable world, about the secrets of this world we have yet to uncover. And best of all, Disneynature did something that I strongly believe more film studios should do: put its money where its mouth is. For as huge as studio as Disney is, the contributions this movie raised were just a drop in the bucket, but it made a difference for the conservationists who work tirelessly to preserve some portion of the earth that we are, undeniably, altering.

Also, this movie featured a monkey riding a dog, so I don't really know what else you could ask for.

Happy Earth Day. Go hug a tree, and turn off the lights when you leave the room tonight. The monkeys thank you.