Yesterday I saw The Biggest Little Farm, starring John and Molly Chester.
John and Molly are married, living a pleasant life in the city. Molly is a personal chef; John is a documentarian. On one of his assignments, he films a home with an animal hoarder and falls in love with one of the dogs. He and Molly end up adopting said dog, Todd, and soon run into trouble because he won't stop barking. After many unsuccessful attempts to correct the dog's behavior, they're evicted from their apartment and decide to build a completely new life.
The couple buy a farm an hour north of Los Angeles and with the help of a dedicated mentor, commit themselves to reviving the land by farming using old-school methods that are kinder to the environment. This documentary chronicles their first seven years on the farm and all of the tragedy and victory that came with it. From pigs that won't eat to coyotes that murder their ducks and chickens, there's never a dull moment
Throughout the story, thankfully told chronologically, we recognize how idealistic and naive the couple were to start this venture with no previous farming experience, but also root for them because they refuse to give up regardless of the challenges they face. There is never a direct reference to climate change, but I sat there silently thanking them each time they "won" a bit of nature back (i.e. area bees returning and thriving). What they're doing all farmers should be doing.
The animals become family members, the lush landscapes provide both a peaceful retreat and an endless supply of headaches (some more dangerous than you may think) and every moment is entertaining whether you've ever had the desire to live on a farm yourself (I personally, have not).
At one point when their pig, Emma, is giving birth to what seems like an endless amount of piglets, Molly smiles with delight and says "I love our life!"
I, for one, loved watching their life.
~~~
Showing posts with label nature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nature. Show all posts
Friday, July 05, 2019
Saturday, May 02, 2015
Monkey Kingdom
Today I saw the documentary Monkey Kingdom, narrated by Tina Fey.
The film traces the lives of monkey families in Sri Lanka as they navigate a year in their natural jungle habitat. The most surprising element for this viewer? The strict class system that the primates adhere to, and for which dictate where they can hunt, eat, sleep, etc.
The heroine of the story is a gentle, "blue collar" monkey named Maya. She's a peaceful, calm girl who knows her place in society... at the bottom of the barrel. She doesn't try to challenge the "white collar" sisters who rule the roost; she merely keeps to herself on the bottom branch, carrying on her affair with a visiting monkey in another part of the forest.
Their love yields baby Kip, an adorable whippersnapper who clings to his mama as he learns the ropes of lower class life in the wild. We see her do what she has to do, like so many mothers do, to keep her little one safe. And yes, the father does run off for long periods of time.
The family survives monsoon season, various vicious predators and even a monkey-napping attack from others in their community. It's scary to watch, but almost comforting to know every species has to work hard to just to exist.
A venture into the city was the highlight of the film for me: monkeys stealing cake from a human birthday party; trying to sleep through the obnoxious street parade and dangling over open-air markets to steal fruit when no one was looking.
The delightful narration by Tina Fey only enhances the scenes, which are slow-paced, but not boring.
If you're a fan of nature and want to catch a glimpse of authentic jungle life, unharmed by our modern society, you could do worse than spending time with this film.
~~~
The film traces the lives of monkey families in Sri Lanka as they navigate a year in their natural jungle habitat. The most surprising element for this viewer? The strict class system that the primates adhere to, and for which dictate where they can hunt, eat, sleep, etc.
The heroine of the story is a gentle, "blue collar" monkey named Maya. She's a peaceful, calm girl who knows her place in society... at the bottom of the barrel. She doesn't try to challenge the "white collar" sisters who rule the roost; she merely keeps to herself on the bottom branch, carrying on her affair with a visiting monkey in another part of the forest.
Their love yields baby Kip, an adorable whippersnapper who clings to his mama as he learns the ropes of lower class life in the wild. We see her do what she has to do, like so many mothers do, to keep her little one safe. And yes, the father does run off for long periods of time.
The family survives monsoon season, various vicious predators and even a monkey-napping attack from others in their community. It's scary to watch, but almost comforting to know every species has to work hard to just to exist.
A venture into the city was the highlight of the film for me: monkeys stealing cake from a human birthday party; trying to sleep through the obnoxious street parade and dangling over open-air markets to steal fruit when no one was looking.
The delightful narration by Tina Fey only enhances the scenes, which are slow-paced, but not boring.
If you're a fan of nature and want to catch a glimpse of authentic jungle life, unharmed by our modern society, you could do worse than spending time with this film.
~~~
Sunday, December 14, 2014
Wild
Tonight I saw Wild, starring Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern.
Everyone processes grief differently: some hide and retreat for the privacy; others weep every day until their tears run dry. Cheryl Strayed (Witherspoon) coped with the loss of her young mother (Dern) by having extramarital affairs and shooting heroin.
When those recreations weren't satisfying her anymore, she divorced her husband and hiked the Pacific Crest Trail from California to Oregon—completely alone. She wrote a book about her journey, which is what this film is based upon.
Of course, because she wasn't a nature enthusiast or even regular hiker, Strayed wasn't truly prepared for what was in store. She read guidebooks and bought fancy supplies at REI, but when she got to the trail, her bag was too heavy, she didn't know how to pitch a tent or use her stove properly and her shoes didn't fit. Admirably (or stupidly, depending on how you look at it), she pressed on.
She encountered everything from foxes to snakes along the trail, and with the exception of one pair of creepy men, several human beings who were nothing but kind. Watching this just may restore your confidence in humanity.
Witherspoon does a stellar job of making Strayed's pain seem authentic and her mistakes almost necessary. What judgmental folks who scoff at the path she took will overlook is that at the heart of everything, she was searching for an experience to expel the grief that she couldn't let go of in any normal scenario.
I've never lost a parent, but I have lost love in life and it took me years to recover from it because I wasn't able to completely lose myself in that grief and step outside myself to process it.
Strayed gave herself a great gift by completing her trip and she gave us a great gift by sharing that journey. More than a story of pain, it's a meditation on healing.
We could all learn a thing or two from her courage.
~~~
Everyone processes grief differently: some hide and retreat for the privacy; others weep every day until their tears run dry. Cheryl Strayed (Witherspoon) coped with the loss of her young mother (Dern) by having extramarital affairs and shooting heroin.
When those recreations weren't satisfying her anymore, she divorced her husband and hiked the Pacific Crest Trail from California to Oregon—completely alone. She wrote a book about her journey, which is what this film is based upon.
Of course, because she wasn't a nature enthusiast or even regular hiker, Strayed wasn't truly prepared for what was in store. She read guidebooks and bought fancy supplies at REI, but when she got to the trail, her bag was too heavy, she didn't know how to pitch a tent or use her stove properly and her shoes didn't fit. Admirably (or stupidly, depending on how you look at it), she pressed on.
She encountered everything from foxes to snakes along the trail, and with the exception of one pair of creepy men, several human beings who were nothing but kind. Watching this just may restore your confidence in humanity.
Witherspoon does a stellar job of making Strayed's pain seem authentic and her mistakes almost necessary. What judgmental folks who scoff at the path she took will overlook is that at the heart of everything, she was searching for an experience to expel the grief that she couldn't let go of in any normal scenario.
I've never lost a parent, but I have lost love in life and it took me years to recover from it because I wasn't able to completely lose myself in that grief and step outside myself to process it.
Strayed gave herself a great gift by completing her trip and she gave us a great gift by sharing that journey. More than a story of pain, it's a meditation on healing.
We could all learn a thing or two from her courage.
~~~
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Earth
Today I saw Disney's Earth, starring polar bears, birds, caribou, walruses, buffalo, elephants, lynx, lions and whales.
Narrated by James Earl Jones, the 'story' here isn't as linear as March of the Penguins or various Animal Planet shows like Meerkat Manor, but it does take us through a year on our planet with the absence of humans (except for that voice, of course).
We start with a polar bear mother and her two cubs who are being introduced to the surface of the earth for the first time. It's hard to visualize these mammoth balls of fluffy fur as the notoriously mean creatures they really are when our first glimpse has them sliding helplessly across glaciers, struggling for footing, and frolicking about. But toward the end of the movie when we meet Dad attacking a mound of walruses with reckless abandon, we see how these families have long survived the conditions.
In another portion of the film, we watch a lone lynx creeping through an icy forest, searching for a rare meal. Later, a fuzzy family of lynx makes the initial peek seem like the cameras were pointed toward an uncommon Serial Killer Lynx, because these kids are just too darned cute to be evil.
But really, the moral of the story is: An Eye for an Eye.
I realize that nature is harsh and that all species are important to the food chain for whatever reason, but that didn't make it any easier for me to watch a wolf chase down a caribou calf and take a chunk out of its backside, or prevent me from tearing up when a baby elephant gets separated from its pack during a dust storm and follows the wrong trail to try to catch up with them.
What I'm saying is: if I had kids, I'm not quite sure I'd let them see this until they were 10 or 12.
There are some scary scenes in addition to the ones I just mentioned—lions roaring during a nighttime thunderstorm, another "chase" scene involving a cheetah that doesn't end well for the prey, etc. I found myself turning away much more than I'd expected.
That said, there are some amazing scenes I could've stared at all day, such as the birds of paradise who were "preparing for dates" with females and a humpback whale calf's first swim through its new home in the ocean.
The lengths the cameramen and women must have gone to to gain this footage is nothing short of impressive (and we see glimpses of them during the credits; hopefully there will be more footage on the eventual DVD), and sitting back and taking it all in, you really do realize just how insignificant you are in the grand scheme of this planet.
Even more of a reason to be good to our Mother Earth, if you ask me.
~~~
Narrated by James Earl Jones, the 'story' here isn't as linear as March of the Penguins or various Animal Planet shows like Meerkat Manor, but it does take us through a year on our planet with the absence of humans (except for that voice, of course).
We start with a polar bear mother and her two cubs who are being introduced to the surface of the earth for the first time. It's hard to visualize these mammoth balls of fluffy fur as the notoriously mean creatures they really are when our first glimpse has them sliding helplessly across glaciers, struggling for footing, and frolicking about. But toward the end of the movie when we meet Dad attacking a mound of walruses with reckless abandon, we see how these families have long survived the conditions.
In another portion of the film, we watch a lone lynx creeping through an icy forest, searching for a rare meal. Later, a fuzzy family of lynx makes the initial peek seem like the cameras were pointed toward an uncommon Serial Killer Lynx, because these kids are just too darned cute to be evil.
But really, the moral of the story is: An Eye for an Eye.
I realize that nature is harsh and that all species are important to the food chain for whatever reason, but that didn't make it any easier for me to watch a wolf chase down a caribou calf and take a chunk out of its backside, or prevent me from tearing up when a baby elephant gets separated from its pack during a dust storm and follows the wrong trail to try to catch up with them.
What I'm saying is: if I had kids, I'm not quite sure I'd let them see this until they were 10 or 12.
There are some scary scenes in addition to the ones I just mentioned—lions roaring during a nighttime thunderstorm, another "chase" scene involving a cheetah that doesn't end well for the prey, etc. I found myself turning away much more than I'd expected.
That said, there are some amazing scenes I could've stared at all day, such as the birds of paradise who were "preparing for dates" with females and a humpback whale calf's first swim through its new home in the ocean.
The lengths the cameramen and women must have gone to to gain this footage is nothing short of impressive (and we see glimpses of them during the credits; hopefully there will be more footage on the eventual DVD), and sitting back and taking it all in, you really do realize just how insignificant you are in the grand scheme of this planet.
Even more of a reason to be good to our Mother Earth, if you ask me.
~~~
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