Escape from Extinction: Rewilding
Matthew R. Brady continues his quest to explore the benefits of rewilding and its contribution to animal conservation.
Image courtesy of Kaleidoscope Entertainment.
To some degree it would seem that the terms wilding and rewilding are interchangeable and that makes it all the more important to stress that this new documentary by Matthew R. Brady is quite distinct in character from the highly popular 2023 film Wilding. That earlier piece concentrated on the concept of wilding being applied by Isabella Tree and her husband Charlie Burrell to their estate at Knepp in West Sussex whereas the focus of this new work is anything but localised. Here we are dealing with rewilding all around the world and the word applies in its widest sense: long-term activity designed to restore wilderness areas, to repair damaged ecosystems and to restore landscapes that have been degraded. The preservation of animal species that might become extinct is a central issue here and Brady’s film takes us to places as far apart as Bolivia, Rwanda, Spain, India and Brazil. Indeed, the film’s release date in the UK was deliberately chosen to coincide with World Earth Day.
This is Brady’s second feature film and represents a sequel to his first which I have not seen, that being 2020’s Escape from Extinction which was partly produced by the animal welfare body The American Humane Society. Robin Ganzert who is its current president and CEO features prominently here among the many specialists concerned in one way or another with species conservation. When it comes to choosing somebody to deliver the voice-over commentary, Brady is clearly following a pattern since in 2020 he chose Helen Mirren and for this film we have Meryl Streep.
It would not have been surprising if the tone of this film had been somewhat downbeat. As a study of the natural world at a time of environmental crisis it brings to mind the excellent television programmes that feature Sir David Attenborough and which these days invariably carry warnings about the potentially dire consequences of climate change. Here, however, the various endeavours touched on are in the main offered as examples of interventions which have brought about benefits. If the film’s promotion of conservation science possibly becomes over-optimistic at times, it is nevertheless not afraid to acknowledge failures. Thus, while it introduces cases where a species has gained by being moved to a different country, it also refers to misjudgments such as the cane toads brought to Australia which proved hugely damaging to the ecology there. Similarly African cheetahs when moved to Asiatic areas had a profoundly negative impact. Elsewhere, however, we hear of many success stories. Some are given detailed treatment (this applies to the development undertaken in Rwanda after the genocide of 1994) while briefer illustrations touch on such creatures as sea otters, macaws and black rhinos.
As it happens, I regard Brady’s film as having a downside just as I did with David Allen's Wilding. Even so the weaknesses are far from being of the same kind. In Wilding I found the images far too consciously prettified but that is avoided here and Brady’s photographer Eduardo Ramirez-Gonzalez does a very good straightforward job. However, I am distracted by the fact that Escape from Extinction: Rewilding never pauses long enough to allow the viewer to relish the shots of animals obtained. Instead, there is a continual barrage of comment that never lets up. There is nothing wrong with Meryl Streep's delivery of the commentary but there is simply too much of it - and especially when one also takes into account the additional comments from the experts who contribute their own insights. This is a misjudgment twice over: first, cinema is a visual medium and needs to find the space for the viewer to benefit from that undistracted by constant words; secondly the persistent talk leaves one with the impression of being lectured and children especially are likely to be put off by that. That’s all the more a shame because one concurs with those who believe that this film’s subject-matter makes it theoretically ideal viewing for schools. Had the piece taken the form of a series of three half-hour programmes for television this issue might not have been quite so acute.
That said, despite my own reservations about Wilding (which also extended to its inclusion of some ill-judged re-enactments), that film was very successful. Similarly, it may well be the case that the subject matter of Brady's new film and the quality of its photography will have an appeal which for many will far outweigh the fact that it never seems to know when to shut up and let the pictures take over.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Featuring Robin Ganzert, Bengt Holst, Debborah Luke, Brad Andrews, Eric Tsao, Clément Lanthier, Mike Jordan, Jenny Gray, Wolfgang Kiessling, Christoph Kiessling, Bill Street, Kira Mileham, Sally Sherwen, Debra Erickson, Theo B. Pagel, Jon Paul Rodríguez, and the voice of Meryl Streep as narrator.
Dir Matthew R. Brady, Pro Matthew R. Brady, Screenplay Alex Vincent Blumberg, Ph Eduardo Ramirez-Gonzalez, Ed Matt Faw, Music Chihsuan Yang.
MRB Productions/Canary Productions-Kaleidoscope Entertainment.
91 mins. USA. 2024. US Rel: 27 September 2024. UK Rel: 22 April 2025. Cert. 12A.
