The Green Wonder - Our Forest - DVD

Film: In Germany, about 30 percent of the national territory is forested. That is over 10,000,000 hectares of deciduous and coniferous forests. A very widespread habitat thus, about which, however, just with city dwellers is quite little known. Nature filmmaker Jan Haft now wants to change this with his wonderful documentary The Green Miracle - Our Forest. Between 2005 and 2011, he and his team captured 250 hours of film footage at 70 locations in Germany, Austria and Denmark, from which he edited an almost 90-minute journey through the forest habitat. From the tops of the trees to the depths of the ground, plants and animals were observed with various cameras and filmed from camouflage tents or hot air balloons. Homemade camera sleds on cable cars and rail systems have provided footage that offers viewers truly unique images in time-lapse, normal speed, or slow motion.

Whether ants protecting their burrow from predators with the help of deliberately sprayed acid, fox cubs exploring their surroundings, bumblebees driving mice out of their burrows to settle there themselves , deer defending their territory or stag beetles becoming food for slime moulds after losing a duel, all this and much more is presented in a very entertaining, gripping way with great attention to detail and also with a little humour. Benno Fürmann leads as a narrator through the events. Even though many of the images would not have needed any accompanying commentary at all, Fürmann's voice never comes across as distracting or annoying.

The film, however, only provides a general insight into the forest habitat. There is no specific information, such as which animals are found in which region of Germany or Europe, which plants tend to grow in deciduous forests and which primarily in coniferous forests, or whether there are significant regional differences in the forest and its inhabitants within Germany. Although there would certainly have been some interesting information to impart here, the rather general and unspecific style of the documentary does not have a negative effect. On the contrary. Because by the fact that the whole thing seems less like a sober educational film, but rather like an informative and surprising walk in the green, the entertainment value of the nature documentary is increased enormously.

And this is important insofar as the film already threatens the fate of drowning in the mass of the many animal and nature documentaries of recent times. Because even if there are always high-quality and simply wonderful films among them, the interest of the audience in works of this genre is unfortunately decreasing more and more. Let's hope that The Green Miracle - Our Forest can generate more interest again. Because the enormous amount of work that went into the project, the wonderful realization and the fascinating images make it more than recommendable to watch this film. It is best to plan an extended walk through the forest after watching the DVD. Because you will see the native flora after this documentary certainly with completely new eyes and perceive much more consciously. And for this there is then also a deserved: absolutely worth seeing!

Picture + Sound: The image has a high overall sharpness and a very natural-looking coloring. At a few moments, the contrasts appear a bit overdrawn, leading to minor weaknesses in detail presentation. But the overall impression left by the DVD's picture quality is absolutely positive. This also applies to the Dolby Digital 5.1 mix, which, in addition to the narrator's voice and the music, is particularly dominated by the atmospheric sounds of the forests and their inhabitants. Good!

Extras: As a bonus, the DVD has, in addition to the trailer, three interviews with narrator Benno Fürmann (about 11 min), director Jan Haft (about 8 min) and producer Melanie Haft (about 4 min) to offer. Together with the detailed booklet that accompanies the DVD, interested viewers are offered a pretty good insight into the making of the project and its background with these well-arranged extras. Good!

Conclusion: The Green Wonder - Our Forest is a not only visually fascinating documentary that presents the forest habitat in all its facets and thus allows the viewer to see it with completely new eyes. The good technical realization of the DVD supports the power of the images that Jan Haft and his team have captured in years of work. If you like informative and especially beautiful nature documentaries, you should definitely grab this one. Absolutely recommendable

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp