Africa [DVD]

Hi, this is yet another example of the BBC firing on all thrusters. The photography is first rate, the sequences interesting and fresh. There is also no attempt to invent a narrative. This is an organised and in-depth expose into the variety of animals that inhabit the African plains, jungles, mountain ranges, ravines and rivers. The photography is first rate, especially the footage captured at night and it is all capped-off with the dulcet tones of our own Sir David. An excellent addition to your Blu Ray nature collection.

I've just finished watching "Africa" on Blu-Ray and in the main must agree with the majority of other reviewers. Each episode is a marvel of natural history film making and the series warrants an unequivocal five stars, however, the episode entitled "Cape" lets the entire series down very badly. The episode is shoddily put together and misleading.The Cape has its own unique floristic and faunal composition caused by climatic conditions. This was only touched on by the programme. A quarter of the episode was devoted to the reproduction of turtles, which although interesting had nothing to do with the Cape. The episode continued with some film of storks, spoonbills and pelicans fishing. The relevancy of this to the "Cape" was never explained. The Drakensburg Mountains were then considered. Again, interesting but relevant to the Karoo, not to the Cape.Additionally the episode was littered with glaring errors of which two examples will be sufficient. It was stated that the sardines met an impenetrable barrier when they met the warm Agulhas Current. This is utter hogwash. The arrival of the sardines off the coast of KwaZuluNatal, more than 1 500 kms east of this "barrier" is a well reported event and a highlight for fishermen, dolphin watchers and nature lovers in general. Indeed their arrival was extensively filmed as part of an earlier Attenborough documentary.Secondly, the assertion that "rainwater flows from Mozambique, south to the Eastern Cape" left me speechless. Where are these westerly flowing rivers? Did anyone look at a map? In the interest of brevity, I'll not go into other errors, suffice to say that the episode gave the impression that the series makers had a lot of excess film which they didn't know what to do with. These were then lumped together under the tenuous title "Cape".The Cape is in fact an exceptional area of biological diversity. Nearly 4% of the Earth's plant species live in the Cape and the vast majority of these species are unique to the area. I would have thought that such an ecosystem would have been better served from an eponymous episode in an otherwise excellent series.

The BBC and David Attenborough, have been producing World beating nature documentaries for years.This one is no exception. The camera work, production and expert commentary by the man himself are all absolutely spot on.Sit back, relax and enjoy the show.Highly recommended. Buy with confidence.I do not receive any payment or free goods for writing these reviews. I am just happy to share my views on my purchases with fellow like minded Amazonians in the hope that you may find it helpful.

You know what I like about the BBC? When they do something, they do it right, astoundingly right. Their work is original and exceptional. And when it comes to professionalism, they are the masters. I have seen so many wildlife documentaries about Africa on TV and DVDs, but this one is like no other. I have seen all the six episodes in two days and what a richly rewarding experience it was.The episodes are arranged 'regionally' rather than by habitat. The BBC team, and in four years, visit some of the striking places in Africa from the Atlas Mountains in North Africa to the Cape of Good Hope in the south to bring us some of the extraordinary wildlife spectacles this ancient continent has yet to offer. Some of these unforgettable events are: two male giraffes fighting in Nambia, black rhinos socializing near a waterhole in the cover of darkness in Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique, daring lizards catching flies off sleeping lions, chimpanzees using branches to dig honeycombs out of tree barks while the young ones watching and learning, silver ants battling the scorching the brutal African sun to gather food in just 10 minutes, spectacular sand dunes shifting which took months to video, etc. Really really amazing stuff.In the extra materials, you get to learn what patience, endurance, dedication, and professionalism it all took in order to produce such top notch film making. I really take my hat to all the BBC team members who were involved in this project.And yeah Sir David Attenborough is the narrator (who also appears in person in some of the episodes). What a joy it was to hear his voice : )I enjoyed Africa immensely and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in wildlife documentary films. Perfect.

This is a new trend for the BBC: Most of Africa's wild life has been either shot for trophies/"medicines" or eaten, and large parts of the continent are far too dangerous to visit anyway. Since my days there in the fifties the major animals have vanished so fast there are in many cases less than 10% left. How to make a film about Africa in such circumstances? The BBC have as usual done an excellent job of seeking out unusual tit bits and making them into well photographed stories but this is hardly a film about Africa as a whole other than the final section: The Future - which despite some flashes of optimism is pretty bleak.This UK release is on three all region discs and seems to be identical in content to the two disc US release. I cannot comment on the picture quality differences but this has a very high bit rate and I would guess would have a better picture quality.Sir David does a great job as usual but he is now quite elderly and getting frail and I doubt we will see him out in the sticks much more. What an amazing man! This is a most enjoyable set but it does not and realistically cannot have the gigantic spread say of Planet Earth or The Blue Planet, the animals are no longer there.