Skunkyrate Gripping story with well-crafted characters

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

FilmCreature I was stunned by the images in Genesis. They can be beautiful, or powerful, even emotional. I have to say the fishes-out-of-water were my favorite animal here. And the seahorse part...well, I'll just go past that.Genesis is narrated by Sotigui Kouyaté, an old man who looks like an ancient storyteller. Genesis has solidly atheistic views, but how many documentaries don't? That shouldn't keep religious folks from seeing this marvelous film. I got more than I expected when I checked out Genesis in my local library. And besides the agonizingly boring seahorse mating scene, I have no qualms about the movie. 9/10.

lastliberal I was getting the speakers in my car upgraded when the salesman showed me their new HD TVs and the super speaker systems. He used LOTR to demonstrate how you hear the smallest sounds. I wish he would have used this film. I would have bought a system right away. Even on my normal TV with build in stereo the sights and sounds were nothing short of spectacular.I am not just talking about the music, which was incredibly beautiful, but the sounds of the life forms in the film. They really enhanced the small creatures with close up camera work and realistic sound. Looking at a lizard, you could imagine a dinosaur with any effort at all.Anyone who watched the Discovery Channel on occasion, especially if you have been watch Planet earth - and I hope you have - has seen some incredible things, but I have not seen anything as incredible as this.We science geeks know that the atoms in Hitler or Ghengis Khan could be floating around in our bodies right now, but anyone will enjoy seeing the story of life and death with all the drama and excitement that this film has.If you get Showtime (I don't) then tune in as it is currently playing.

Brandt Sponseller This is a documentary that covers from the Big Bang through the evolution and life cycles of complex animals. That alone wouldn't make Genesis very unique--there are tens of documentaries, most made for television, which cover all or some of the same material.However, one of the unique aspects of Genesis is that it features "narration" by Sotigui Kouyaté, a veteran West African actor. Kouyaté appears on camera often, in a part that seems halfway between a dramatic monologue and the traditional hosting of such documentaries, usually by academics of some stripe. The text that Kouyaté reads, which was written by directors Claude Nuridsany and Marie Pérennou, is much more poetic and philosophical than the narration that normally accompanies this type of documentary. That has benefits, and Kouyaté tends to come across as a less manic human counterpart to The Lion King's (1994) Rafiki, but it also has problems if you read the film strictly as a documentary, as a lot of the scientific information and philosophical ideas are either incorrect or not very well thought out.However, when covering such a wide swathe of existence, you can hardly expect narration to bog down in fine-grained, sometimes controversial points, and as suggested by the Rafiki comparison, I think it's not quite right to read Genesis strictly as a documentary. Nuridsany and Pérennou shoot for and achieve a film that very effectively conveys an intuitive understanding of holistic or panentheistic philosophical and spiritual views and shows how well they can mesh with current scientific understanding.But aside from the above, and that is important and subtle material, what really gives Genesis an edge and what makes it crucial viewing to anyone with an interest in these kinds of documentaries is the fantastic cinematography. Other than another film from the same team, Microcosmos: Le peuple de l'herbe (1996), I don't think I've ever seen footage of animals shot as well as this, and I've only rarely seen footage of geology and inanimate objects shoot as well as this. The cinematography features amazing close-ups, crisp images, seamless time-lapse photography, impressive footage (you'll often wonder how they could have obtained some of these shots), and often-brilliant editing. At times the film resembles a collage of abstract artwork as much as a documentary, and the editing helps make the holistic/panentheistic view clear.Long sections of the film are narration-free. Instead, the cinematography is accompanied by music, so at times, Genesis almost resembles the Godfrey Reggio/Philip Glass film Anima Mundi (1992). At least at one point, the music actually sounds Glass-like. The only slightly distracting element of the soundtrack is that Nuridsany and Pérennou decided to add foley sound effects to many scenes. Occasionally they enhance the visuals, but sometimes they're overdone.

robertgwilson This is a beautifully conceived, artistic myth about origin and cycle of life as told by an African storyteller in beautifully enunciated French (English subtitles). His myth is illustrated with nature photography that is both appropriate for the particular thought and, simultaneously, of great beauty. Over six years of patient work assembled this material by the co-directors who are also professional biologists. As a consequence, their myth rests solidly in modern science. Their venues range from Iceland (the opening shots) to Madagascar (for the brilliantly colored shots of marine life). This wonderfully conceived film is underpinned by an original score which complements the photography and is wonderfully innovative. I hope a video becomes available.