Sick Product of a Sick System

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

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

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

This innovative, often highly entertaining film is spoiled only by its insistence on overstaying its welcome (by about fifteen minutes). Directors Nuridsany and Perinnou explore a world about which we know very little, and understand even less.The amazing close-up photography reveals a veritable society that is as intricate as it is interdependent. The world of the insects is a fascinating, oft times amusing one peopled with hard working, organised ants, frantic bees, hungry birds and determined beetles, just to name a few. "Microcosmos" reveals this hidden mystery as a place where "a day is a lifetime".Truly this movie is testimony to the unfathomable God who created this awe-inspiring world in which we live.Monday, June 1, 1998 - Hoyts Croydon

Thoroughly enjoyable film, although I did at least in the beginning want more explanation. I wanted to know what that particular spider (or other creature) was called. I wanted to hear things like "Lucky catch. Sometimes a spider will sit for days without a meal." (I don't really know if that's the case.) Little bits of information like that would have been welcome.But then I became absorbed and realized that it was enough just to observe and learn what was available visually. The use of music to tell the story was not perfect, but good enough. I apparently do not enjoy snail mating as much as the film-makers though, because they chose absolutely beautiful music and it went on entirely too long. Strange.Nevertheless, I did enjoy this one and I would watch it again. It turns out that when you know more about them and can see their beauty this tiny creatures don't seem so creepy any more.

That's how good this documentary is! I simply mentioned the snail couple because that particular scene made such a strong impact on me. I never saw more affection and love in the animal world...the two brown snails were, honest to God, kissing. Actually, they were all over each other:) I find it a little disturbing that some previous posters don't qualify "Microcosmos" as a documentary. I think that it didn't need to narrate and explain what it was about, but it indeed documented something, a part of the beautiful nature that surrounds us. The fact that so little human "presence" is required makes it even more enjoyable and somehow, pure. It is truly mesmerizing and captivating, like watching a beautiful moving painting that relaxes the body and soul. How better to honor nature?

"Beyond anything we could imagine, yet almost beneath our notice." An exquisite film, painfully beautiful. It's relatively easy to find beauty in the majestic Grand Tetons, Monument Valley, or the brooding giants of a Big Tree forest. This film finds incredible beauty unnoticed at our feet.Ants drinking raindrops, or clustered around a tiny puddle -- then sharing back at the nest.Caterpillars marching in close formation.Ladybugs as the voracious predators they are. Ants protecting their aphids from the ladybug. Ants drinking the nectar exuded by the aphids they farm.Two snails locked in loving embrace.Alien-looking mantids suddenly taking notice of the camera.Beetles in extended combat. We are not shown why.A mosquito emerging from pupa. A butterfly also. A caterpillar hatching from an egg -- then eating the shell.Winged ants crowding out of the nest for their nuptial flight.Caterpillars in weird diversity, one with two horns on its posterior that extrude and retract bright red filaments. What /are/ they?The film is almost entirely visual. There are only a few seconds of voice-over at beginning and end, and the soundtrack is very low-key, for the most part, of the natural sounds of the action. Occasional light touches of music or choral voices nicely complement the photography.I was struck by the cleanliness! Bugs cleaning, cleaning, cleaning! Even an earthworm emerging from burrow glistens in pristine translucent beauty. After viewing this film, how could anyone say that bugs are dirty?