Roughly borrowing the structure from the first episode of the TV series, From Pole to Pole, Earth takes its viewers on a trip from the North Pole to Antarctica, focussing on three mothers and their offspring: a polar bear family coming out of hibernation, an elephant with child trekking towards the Okavango delta through the desert and a whale with its baby travelling from tropical to arctic waters in search of food. Along the way, the film covers different continents and many other animals, including foxes in Yellowstone Park, lynxes in the forests of Russia and cranes overcoming the deadly turbulence around Mount Everest.

Earth also visually underlines what makes life on earth possible: sun and water, with stunning views of waterfalls and deserts, ice and ocean waters, sunrises and sunsets. Sophisticated editing and filming techniques allow for forests to go through the cycle of the four seasons in one pan of a wooded valley, while a single-second shark bite is drawn out to a majestic slow-motion sequence of terrible beauty.

A night-time sequence involving elephants and predators hunting in packs is breath-taking, but like other hunter-and-hunted scenes, the makers cut away just before any blood comes into view, largely making the film suitable for children. Still, the eat-or-be-eaten mentality and balance of nature is plainly in view, though heart-pounding chase sequences are balanced with much lighter scenes with cuddly cute mammals and birds with unusual plumage inspiring chuckles and wonder.

There is so much to simply see and the film is so well strung together that the narration (provided by Patrick Stewart in the English version, who takes over from the series’ Lord Attenborough) is not really necessary. Indeed the message that time is running out is amply made clear by what Fothergill and Linfield do and do not show. During the entire documentary there is not a human in sight (not even in the shape of a shadow of the helicopter shooting the aerial shots), which both underlines that it is not too late to take action since natural reserves still exist, but, at the same time – by man’s conspicuous absence – makes it clear how much we are present everywhere else.

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