Wildes Land

Based on the best selling book by Isabella Tree, who also acts as this features main talking head, British documentary Wilding is a mostly unremarkable exploration of a remarkable work of nature as director David Allen for his debut feature examines the rewilding project of the Knepp Wildland in West Sussex.

An estate that is owned by Tree and her partner, the Kneep Wildland project is an entirely fresh way of looking to farm and sustain land outside of the stereotypical fashion that modern science and agribusiness has set in place with an idea to instead let the natural environment and animal species create their own ecosystems from the ground up as man takes a massive backwards step from the whole scenario.

It's a controversial approach and one that bought Tree and her team much vitriol and hatred early on in their journey but after decades of sustained practice and a commitment to the cause, the benefits of what their approach can gain is there for all too see, especially with Allen's keen eye.

When we say that Wilding is unremarkable as a film it can't be a statement that reads true when one talks about the visual elements of Allen's film that are beautiful and unique in equal measure.

Whether its pigs exploring local watering holes for fresh food or deer roaming the estate, Wilding has numerous moments of breath-taking beauty and while the films flashbacks and more staged elements don't real as natural as the modern day segments, even they have their moments, a scene involving 1000's of butterflies descending on the property is gorgeously staged.

For anyone seeking out a documentary that connects the viewer directly too nature the way in which is intended to be found Wilding will be a major winner and while it may struggle to find a broad and wide-ranging audience, this is a well-intentioned visual exploration of a true life underdog story.

Final Say -

A visually outstanding British documentary that never soars to great heights otherwise, Wilding is a workmanlike feature that never outstays its welcome but never becomes a must-see at the same time.

3 busy beavers out of 5.

I was disappointed, I expected organic farming. I got some rich couple who sell expensive tours of a estate with some animals running about on it.

Not wild boar, of course not, might be a wee bit dangerous?

Not wild cattle, but a breed. And regular horses.

This is how the world was they claim. Well, explain New Zealand then. Or the Pacific Islands.

They also forget most of the people way back when, were not well fed. Animals and plants went extinct even then, they suffered from disease, hunger, climate change, disasters.

Right... Watch bats eat for 70 pounds. Look at butterflies for another 70.

"visit wildlife refugia" it actually says in yep a 4WD vehicle for 110 pounds.

What a joke.

There's something quite fascinating about the recuperative ability of the land to recover from centuries of man's abuse displayed in this documentary. Isabella Tree and husband Charlie have inherited a country estate that can barely manage to grow weeds. The soil is knackered and desperate action is required. They hit on the fairly radical idea of abandoning the place to nature (except their front lawn!) and the film now follows the reclamation of this space by birds, bugs, deer, pigs, cattle - creatures that would have roamed the land freely a few hundred years ago. They even bring in storks! It's a stunning piece of photography to look at, but the underlying narrative is really quite weak and I found it allowed sentiment to overrule the one thing it fails to address - scalability. They live in a castle with no evident money worries. None that we are told about, anyway. So this looks like a worthy pet project that though laudable and impressive will, as one of their neighbours raises at a meeting, not feed the nation. When the vast majority of these complementary farming techniques were in use, the population of the UK was probably less than 10% of what it is now; malnutrition and starvation were rife and distribution methods, without refrigeration, left the food supply subject to the vagaries of the weather. What this doesn't address in any way is just how this method of nurturing the land is going to provide for an hungry population. It's largely presented by Isabella Tree herself, and she is an engaging individual but one who presents the most complex of arguments in far too simple a fashion - as if it were a lecture on the relative merits of organic methods without addressing in any way their limitations of their practicalities or economics. "Duncan" the horse and a few of the pigs have some great fun at a charity polo match and it is a very watchable film - but a little too light and fluffy.

This film is beyond beautiful and I found it far more moving than I could ever have imagined. Seeing nature developing like that - especially the animals growing into their natural selves - was just gorgeous.

I watched the film with a people from both our local Environmental group and Climate Action group and we were all deeply moved by the way animals help nature to heal itself. At the end we had questions around how the estate supports itself - camping there isn't expensive and nor are the wildlife tours they do, so hardly enough to support such a huge estate and country house (complete with battlements!)

I felt that it could have gone into so much more depth around how healing the land benefits farming, how they manage the land and the animals, how they make enough money to support the estate. They talk briefly about the need for it to support itself but never any more than that.

And they talk about how challenging it was to tread a path that caused so much strong reaction and hint at the end that this is changing or has changed, but don't develop that theme either.

So I really, really loved the film and would have given it 10 out of 10 for sheer beauty and inspiration, but felt that it could have developed quite a few of the themes to make it more informative rather than just inspirational.

There seem to be extremely positive and extremely negative comments generated by this film which is interesting. I found the best way to view this was to sit back and just enjoy the journey. Of course it's highly edited and geared to show only one outcome: what the land CAN do if we let it. That's a hugely valuable experiment that few dare to take on, whatever the motivations.

The detail - the obvious wealth involved, the actual animal management, the final settlement of the controversies with neighbours - could be argued forever. Without going into the rights and wrongs this film is a cinematically beautiful product and it hits the spot in surprising ways. If nothing else it makes us think outside the box. This was a visual feast and came with an eye-opening view of what's possible! Let's celebrate that at least!