David Attenborough – A Life on our Planet review: A love letter to Earth from the revered broadcaster

In J B Priestley’s An Inspector Calls, an old ghost observes, “We are members of one body... if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish.” That’s pretty much the gist of this documentary, which manages to be both cosy and terrifying.

In his youth, David Attenborough, 94, was the spit of Daniel Craig. We see footage of him, blonde and bare-chested, striding through the jungle. Seen now, the revered broadcaster cuts a different figure. He mostly talks to us from the bare habitat of a room, framed so close we can’t help but notice his somewhat dewy left eye and poignantly skewiff hair. From glossy thrill-seeker to frail geek. Attenborough may have evolved over the years, but he’s always been a credit to the species.

He’s described this film, which is about climate change and the loss of biodiversity, as a “witness statement”. And though it contains few revelations, it puts together a cogent and nuanced argument about the state we’re in.

In Hollywood blockbusters, eco-warriors are routinely presented as baddies — look at Kingsman, Tomorrowland, The Avengers: Infinity War and most recently Tenet. Perhaps mindful of this, our hero, who’s never gone in for fulmination, adopts an especially serene tone.

This is an emotional experience. There’s a stunning sequence in which beautiful, endangered creatures stare into the camera; the wide eyes of a baby orangutan are especially penetrating — though we’re rarely invited to cry. Instead, we’re shown audiences at a conference weeping while watching footage from one of Attenborough’s previous films, in which a group of walruses plunge to their deaths.

Climate change, clearly, is a disaster for animals. And it’s created hell on earth for indigenous tribes. What Attenborough is most keen to stress though, is that, as things stand, even privileged metropolitans are doomed.

It would have been costly and dangerous to send Attenborough to the Amazon, where government-backed loggers are murdering forest guardians and deliberately starting fires to clear land for cattle. It’s safer and more cheering to show Attenborough in the blitzed landscape of Chernobyl, where there are no human beings and, as he points out, nature is getting the last laugh.

We should salute his pragmatism — and applaud Netflix for funding the project. It’s a shame there wasn’t time to insert a Covid-related post-script. It’s now widely accepted that biodiversity loss makes pandemics more likely. But A Life on our Planet is still one of the most important films of 2020.

In cinemas Sept 28, Netflix Oct 4