Genesis

Yes, the visuals are dazzling. The pacing and camera stance are almost Kubrickian, which alone reminds us that we are seeing a movie, and not a Discovery channel feature.

There are three narratives at work here, the visuals, our collective knowledge of science/nature that we have before experiencing these visuals, and the narration. Of these, the narration is the weakest link, nearly broken when we get to the conflation of biology with poetic 'love'. That is before...

...we get to Entropy. Movies themselves are a kind of struggle against entropy. Starting with a flood of chaotic images (elements), the movie's task is to go against the flow and try to impose a higher state of order -- a sort of life of its own in the viewer's mind. Through this device of self-reference, we are given the target criterion with which we judge the movie's quality: does the new order in your mind hold up against degradation?

I would say yes. Not only visually, but narratively -- by looking at ourselves from outside ourselves, the trap of melodrama is avoided.

Watch this and pay attention to the sight of a drop of milk dissolving in water, or the smoke rings...these are inherently cinematic notions: notions that belong with us among the tribe of the living.

This film boldly undertakes to tell the story of life from the Big Bang to the variety of species that we know today. And the history lesson becomes a fairy tale.

Genesis asks that you leave aside everything you know about yourself, and think of your body as the substance that makes up the universe, your life as the energy that sparkled up the Big Bang, your projects as a shape, a limited space of organized chaos, resisting the deterioration of time.

The film is breath-taking and captivating from the opening sequence to the last shot. Every image of the film is carefully selected and placed in a sequence: swirling dirt becomes a galaxy; rings of water float on the sound of the mating dance. The technological prowess of the filming is staggering, but does not surpass the ingenuity of the editing, and camera movements: shot in his apparent loneliness, the insect looks like a genius, solving obstacles one after the other. Human meaning is attached to all images shown, from the fish pretending to be daydreaming while baiting its prey, to the crawling crab signaling to a rival. The story of the earth is told by the reality of those jungles and tropical beaches, that we know so little about: swimming frogs start to hop; the giant tortoise becomes a dinosaur.

If you think this is going to be some kind of Discovery Channel show, think again and surprise yourself.

Genesis is one of the most fascinating and relevant documentaries I have watched in my lifetime. As its title suggests, it is an account of the beginning of everything, but focuses most especially on the nature of life on our planet. It is an epiphany to watch for the first time, much like Powers Of Ten, another brilliant documentary. The truths contained in this film and the fashion in which they are masterfully woven into a much broader, overall picture are compelling, the imagery is mesmerizing, and for anyone who is truly interested in the essence and mannerisms of life as we know it, this film is an excellent introduction to a fuller, more complete understanding.

I caught this movie by accident on a long night. I am so glad that I did. I have to admit that I thought the narrator was a wizened old medicine man, not an actor. I TRULY did believe him. His voice is soft and melodic and based on the above review I learned he is an actor. The cinematography is stunning. How they get cameras in certain places I will never know. What pleased me the most was that their is barely any talking during the scenes. The narration is during breaks not OVER the cinematography. The visuals are crisp and clear and a joy to behold. I am truly trying to get my children to watch this from start to finish, I snagged one during the snake and egg scene, which I will not spoil for you, but which is AMAZING. Do yourself and your family a HUGE favor and try to catch this wonderful, wonderful film/documentary. From start to finish it is a joy.

This is a documentary that covers from the Big Bang through the evolution and life cycles of complex animals. That alone wouldn't make Genesis very unique--there are tens of documentaries, most made for television, which cover all or some of the same material.

However, one of the unique aspects of Genesis is that it features "narration" by Sotigui Kouyaté, a veteran West African actor. Kouyaté appears on camera often, in a part that seems halfway between a dramatic monologue and the traditional hosting of such documentaries, usually by academics of some stripe. The text that Kouyaté reads, which was written by directors Claude Nuridsany and Marie Pérennou, is much more poetic and philosophical than the narration that normally accompanies this type of documentary. That has benefits, and Kouyaté tends to come across as a less manic human counterpart to The Lion King's (1994) Rafiki, but it also has problems if you read the film strictly as a documentary, as a lot of the scientific information and philosophical ideas are either incorrect or not very well thought out.

However, when covering such a wide swathe of existence, you can hardly expect narration to bog down in fine-grained, sometimes controversial points, and as suggested by the Rafiki comparison, I think it's not quite right to read Genesis strictly as a documentary. Nuridsany and Pérennou shoot for and achieve a film that very effectively conveys an intuitive understanding of holistic or panentheistic philosophical and spiritual views and shows how well they can mesh with current scientific understanding.

But aside from the above, and that is important and subtle material, what really gives Genesis an edge and what makes it crucial viewing to anyone with an interest in these kinds of documentaries is the fantastic cinematography. Other than another film from the same team, Microcosmos: Le peuple de l'herbe (1996), I don't think I've ever seen footage of animals shot as well as this, and I've only rarely seen footage of geology and inanimate objects shoot as well as this. The cinematography features amazing close-ups, crisp images, seamless time-lapse photography, impressive footage (you'll often wonder how they could have obtained some of these shots), and often-brilliant editing. At times the film resembles a collage of abstract artwork as much as a documentary, and the editing helps make the holistic/panentheistic view clear.

Long sections of the film are narration-free. Instead, the cinematography is accompanied by music, so at times, Genesis almost resembles the Godfrey Reggio/Philip Glass film Anima Mundi (1992). At least at one point, the music actually sounds Glass-like. The only slightly distracting element of the soundtrack is that Nuridsany and Pérennou decided to add foley sound effects to many scenes. Occasionally they enhance the visuals, but sometimes they're overdone.