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Microcosmos  Hot
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Written by Dave Anderson   
Tuesday, 10 May 2005


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Microcosmos

Grade

Content Grade: A
Sound Grade: A-
Extras Grade: F
Picture Grade: A-

Specs

Buena Vista Home Entertainment 1.66:1 Widescreen (16 x 9 enhanced) English 2.0 Dolby Digital Surround English Closed-Captioned 75 min., color, 1996 Rated G (though we do get to see two mollusks gettin' it on)

Review

I've been jonesing for "Microcosmos" to be released on DVD ever since the format was invented. You'd think a picture like this would have been one of the first to exploit the image & sound possibilities of DVD, but no matter. Now that it's here, I'm happy to say it was worth the wait. The only strike against this disc is the absence of special features.
This is simply the definitive document on a day in the life of several species of insects. It isn't really a documentary, in the strictest sense of the word anyway...we learn nothing about the bugs featured, and the unobtrusive narration is limited to some poetic prose book-ending the film. Over the course of this "day", cameras follow various common bugs as they crawl about the French countryside, fight each other, gather food, pollinate flowers, eat or get eaten, get pummeled by rain, etc. One hilarious sequence (and the highlight of the film) sees a dung beetle's struggle to take home his poopy prize. We also watch a mating ritual between two snails that's about as lovingly shot as an erotic art film. We don't get glimpses of bizarre and unusual species of insects; these are the same types of bugs you might find in your back yard...ants, ladybugs, mantises, bees, beetles, spiders, etc. But they've never been captured on film quite like this. In fact, with the total lack of info about these bugs, the cinematography is the whole show...while what the bugs are doing is always interesting, what we're truly amazed by is the film itself. Quite often, especially when accompanied by its sweeping music score, "Microcosmos" has a tone more akin to "Fantasia" than your typical wildlife documentary.

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Picture and Sound

The picture quality isn't quite on par with the 2003 DVD release of "Winged Migration" (which most closely resembles "Microcosmos" in terms of content and narrative), but the overall image is still outstanding. Colors are sharp and vibrant, and the dark tones are accurate. There's a little grain at times, and the time-lapse photography scenes aren't quite as consistent as the rest of the movie, but most videophiles will find little to complain about. The soundtrack is crisp and clean, with no distortion, though it ain't all that imaginatively rendered for DVD (just Dolby Stereo). Still, it sounds terrific.

Extras

No extras are included. Too bad...I would have appreciated a cast & crew bio so I could check the dung beetle's other work.

Summary

Definitely a must-own, "Microcosmos" manages to take a fairly mundane subject and make it a fascinating way to spend 75 minutes, even though we don't actually walk away any wiser about its subject than before. It's simply a wonderful marriage of image and sound that also happens to be disarmingly entertaining. And while it doesn't make me appreciate ants any more than I do (I wage war on them in my kitchen every summer), I do have a new-found respect for the tenacity of dung beetles. Similar Movies: "Winged Migration"; "The Hellstrom Chronicle"; "The Living Desert"; "Fantasia"

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