The Waiting

This is a gorgeously animated analysis of just how impactful human intervention can be, even when it is benign, on the flora and fauna of the Earth. It’s enthusiastically narrated by a biologist who explains her initial encounter with a species of Brazilian frog, only to find that when she returns next year they have all gone. Perhaps they will return? It’s only after contact with some Australian researchers that she discovers a virus that spreads effortlessly across the world now that mankind travels so comprehensively. These amphibians are easily enough treated in a laboratory, but the millions in the wild without immunity are perishing. It’s the beautiful and perfectly scaled sketching that impresses here with a delicateness to the depictions of not just the frogs, but also of many other of the causal factors impacting on this plague like planes, trains, automobiles and scientists, too. It’s a very natural looking natural history film, and well worth a watch.