Review of Human Planet (2011)
Seen in 2017.
I saw the SVT version with Swedish-language narration.
Mostly low-tech contemporary human societies living close to the elements. As in Planet Earth (2006), each episode treats a biome. The last episode’s biome is the city, including landfill, where no plants or animals are noted; it’s just people.
A deliberate attempt to address the frequent complaint, by environmental historians and environmentalists, that nature documentaries tend to ignore people and their massive interplay with and encroachment upon the natural world. The chosen method, however, is largely anthropological, almost in the style of Nanook of the North (1922). The living bridges in India are the single most impressive topic, but it’s all good.
References here: Planet Earth II (2016), Anthropocene: The Human Epoch (2018).