[CPH:DOX '24] The construction of the film based on constant questions develops in a meandering way, making clear the limited knowledge about how thoughts are developed in the animals that surround us. Since the euthanasia carried out on the giraffe Marius at the Copenhagen Zoo in 2014, questions arise about the meaning of life, about death, free will or the place that the human being occupies in the evolutionary chain. Marius's story takes up too much screen time to connect questions that seem to want to motivate reflection rather than find answers. There is an intention of the director to frame the interviews within a context of everyday life, which is reinforced when he maintains the shots in which a zoo employee passes in front of the camera while interviewing Bengt Holst or when a man interrupts an interview in the forest greeting the interviewee. But it is a somewhat scattered reflection in which the most interesting thing is to find the scientists themselves questioning the meaning of life, such as the Danish evolutionary geneticist Eske Willerslev: "If it's all about survival of the fittest and reproduction, if this is really how it all works, what a horrible Earth we're living on, what a terrible place."
Review by Miguel A. ReinaBlockedParent2024-03-14T07:48:10Z
[CPH:DOX '24] The construction of the film based on constant questions develops in a meandering way, making clear the limited knowledge about how thoughts are developed in the animals that surround us. Since the euthanasia carried out on the giraffe Marius at the Copenhagen Zoo in 2014, questions arise about the meaning of life, about death, free will or the place that the human being occupies in the evolutionary chain. Marius's story takes up too much screen time to connect questions that seem to want to motivate reflection rather than find answers. There is an intention of the director to frame the interviews within a context of everyday life, which is reinforced when he maintains the shots in which a zoo employee passes in front of the camera while interviewing Bengt Holst or when a man interrupts an interview in the forest greeting the interviewee. But it is a somewhat scattered reflection in which the most interesting thing is to find the scientists themselves questioning the meaning of life, such as the Danish evolutionary geneticist Eske Willerslev: "If it's all about survival of the fittest and reproduction, if this is really how it all works, what a horrible Earth we're living on, what a terrible place."