Les Secrets de la tombe de Saqqarah

People who are giving this bad reviews apparently have never watched very many Egyptian archeology programs on tv. First about the gloves everyone keeps griping about. It's 95° and they can't keep gloves on tut while entire time because then their hands would sweat and could bust open and cause even more issues. Plus I saw SEVERAL scenes where gloves were being used. Then there is the opening of coffins out on the open. The head of Egyptian antiquities himself even stated that sometimes those coffins were empty and they checked then to make sure that a mummy was inside. Apparently no-one watched the special with Josh Gates and Zahi Hawass when they opened a coffin while it was still in the tomb. Pretty standard for most Egyptian archeology shows that I watched. Letting the bones out in the crypt was another complaint. They were covered in dirt to begin with and in poor condition. Laying them out isn't going to hurt them any more than they already have. My only gripeis about the way they were handling the mummified animals.

However...

Some people complained about the lack of a narrator made the documentary d disjointed and confusing and didn't fill in extra information. I felt this was actually very refreshing. Never before did I ever get to hear the individual workers talk about their work, discuss their family doing this work for at least four generations, how many of them depended on this work every digging season, or show them teaching their children the work too. It was nice to get their point of views on what they were doing and hearing what it meant to them personally to be there. Seeing their everyday mundane conversations and joking with each other as they worked was wonderful to witness. I honestly don't get how they thought anything was "staged". They probably only filmed when things were found or cleaned up enough for the audience to see what was there. Seeing things as they were found was awesome. You have to remember that what we got to see was probably trimmed down from hundreds or even thousands of hours of filming. We were shown what an archeological dig in Egypt was really all about without the annoyance of a narrator who was never there nor bogged down by wasted minutes of people documenting the finds. It was up close and personal from the actual workers point of view which was beautiful and awesome.

Its really cool to get a real time experience of an excavation site. pretty unfiltered too, without too much overproduction. its shows some of the step by step method of working. havent seen much movies/docu that show this in the same detail, prob becauze this was such a rare occasion.

8/10: props

Some parts about the discovery of the tomb and the artefacts inside were absolutely fascinating!

However I feel that for the run time, it doesn't ever actually explain or tell you all that much... There's nothing about the history of the area, what they are doing at the site, nothing to create context.

However some genuine archaeological firsts are made and that's very interesting, as is just physically being able to see "live" new discoveries being made / unearthed.

I enjoyed it because I love ancient history, but if you're new to it, you'll find this pretty boring!

I've looked forward to this film for a while now. Unfortunately, this suffers from a few major things that stop it from being epic.

Recently, I've thought that Netflix multi episodes shows/documentaries could be trimmed down into less episodes or just a 2hr film. This is totally opposite. There is a ton of information here, but the director has unfortunately placed it all over the place. It is very sporadic in its editing and jumps all over the place. Leaving the viewer asking more questions than are being answered. Multi episodes broken into more condensed/direct and specific areas of the "dig" would be much better serving for the audience.

With that being said, I've never wished for a narrator more in any documentary I've ever seen. A narrator would help with tying all of the vast information presented here. Also, to explain what, where and why we are seeing some of the things as well as more explanation of why the Egyptians did some of the thing they did. There is some explanation, but again, it's sporadic and all over the place.

I won't even get into the anxiety I was feeling watching the archaeologists jump around and seem to randomly dig and kinda just toss around (without fully documenting, at least what we see) artifacts and mummies. Again, this may be the bad editing/directing.

Bottom line, the whole thing seems extremely rushed and disjointed.

Now the good, I STILL RECCOMEND that you watch this if you are at all interested in this kind of thing. It's is beautifully shot and shows some amazing things that you do really feel like you are seeing for the first time with the archaeologists. Some images/items that you will never forget. I just wish it was put together better.

This is a great documentary that shows not only the progressive uncovering of an astounding discovery but also some of the lives of people who are working on it. These are not foreigners going there with a big budget. These are egyptian folk who have been working on the site for generations and who have something to tell. Beautifully documented and portrayed, and impressive camera work on such dark and dusty conditions.