+

poster of Wilding
Rating: 6.7/10 by 3 users

Wilding (2024)

Knepp is a beacon of hope for England’s wildlife. When Isabella and her husband inherited the estate to farm, they recognised how sick the land was. But a groundbreaking radical experiment has been nothing short of transformative. Now it’s a place where mussel-diving pigs, storks and butterflies find sanctuary, and where thriving flora and a vast array of animals have taken back the land. This is a charming, hopeful and necessary story of ecological regeneration.

Directing:
  • David Allen
Writing:
  • Isabella Tree
Stars:
Release Date: Fri, Jun 14, 2024

Rating: 6.7/10 by 3 users

Alternative Title:

Country:
United Kingdom
United States of America
Language:
English
Runtime: 01 hour 15 minutes
Budget: $0
Revenue: $0

Plot Keyword: farm, nature, environment, natural habitat, land restoration
Subtitle   Wallpaper   Watch Trailer    

CinemaSerf

There's something quite fascinating about the recuperative ability of the land to recover from centuries of man's abuse displayed in this documentary. Isabella Tree and husband Charlie have inherited a country estate that can barely manage to grow weeds. The soil is knackered and desperate action is required. They hit on the fairly radical idea of abandoning the place to nature (except their front lawn!) and the film now follows the reclamation of this space by birds, bugs, deer, pigs, cattle - creatures that would have roamed the land freely a few hundred years ago. They even bring in storks! It's a stunning piece of photography to look at, but the underlying narrative is really quite weak and I found it allowed sentiment to overrule the one thing it fails to address - scalability. They live in a castle with no evident money worries. None that we are told about, anyway. So this looks like a worthy pet project that though laudable and impressive will, as one of their neighbours raises at a meeting, not feed the nation. When the vast majority of these complementary farming techniques were in use, the population of the UK was probably less than 10% of what it is now; malnutrition and starvation were rife and distribution methods, without refrigeration, left the food supply subject to the vagaries of the weather. What this doesn't address in any way is just how this method of nurturing the land is going to provide for an hungry population. It's largely presented by Isabella Tree herself, and she is an engaging individual but one who presents the most complex of arguments in far too simple a fashion - as if it were a lecture on the relative merits of organic methods without addressing in any way their limitations of their practicalities or economics. "Duncan" the horse and a few of the pigs have some great fun at a charity polo match and it is a very watchable film - but a little too light and fluffy.


My Favorite

Welcome back!

Support Us

Like Movienade?

Please buy us a coffee

scan qr code