Review of The Hellstrom Chronicle (1971)
Seen in 2015.
A combination of a nature documentary with a layer of subversive poetry from a fictional presenter. Dr. Nils Hellström, an outcast for his views, describes the conquering Insect.
On a technical level it has been entirely surpassed by the likes of Attenborough’s Micro Monsters 3D (2013). It is no longer visually compelling, as it must have been when it was made, but the writing is still good. Trying to describe insects, at once truthfully, beautifully and in an insincere threatening light following the DDT debate of the 1960s, certainly holds my attention as an intellectual feat.