Call Of The Forest: A Review

Call of the Forest: The Forgotten Wisdom of Trees¹ is a documentary style film featuring Diana Beresford-Kroeger, a renowned botanist and researcher of forests.

To call it a documentary however, doesn’t do it justice.  It is more a poem and invocation to the mystery and majesty of forests. 

Diana’s presence in the film is one of reverence for the trees and forests she explores.  It is reverence entirely called for.  Diana and the other presenters ably show us that the complexity and diversity of forests are intimately linked and essential to all life (including us humans) on earth. 

One example of this is by showing the inter-dependence of forests and oceans, including noting that kelp fields are the forests of the oceans.  Japanese fishermen knew this link, as their saying “if you want to see a fish, climb a tree” attests.

The film takes us into the forests of Japan, Canada, USA, Ireland and Germany, showing how in each instance the forest is unique to its place.  We are also shown the magnificence of the Boreal Forest encircling the northern reaches of the globe through the Americas, Scandinavia, Russia and northern Japan.  This forest is crucial to the continued existence of human life on this planet, yet it too, is threatened by greed, as have been so many forests before.

The film dismisses the myth of forest management that tells us that replanting trees as plantations is sufficient to replace the forest that is cut down.  Plantations are NOT forests.  A forest contains young, old, decaying, maturing trees.  Some are “mother trees” others adolescents or babies.  Forests include the animals, insects, lichens and fungi that have emerged in conjunction with the trees.  A forest is an entire system, whereas a plantation is simply a number of similar trees planted together.

Hinted at in the film is the underground network of mycelium that link trees and allow them to communicate with one another, enable them to share resources and to warn of danger.  This is the one area of the film where I would have liked more.  The brief hint was insufficient.

Visually, this film is magnificent, with excellent photographic work.  Many times one could almost smell the forest and the earth.

The screening I watched ended with applause from the audience in the packed-out hall.  That applause was entirely justified.

Forests offer much to us humans, and this film tells their stories – stories that span thousands upon thousands of years.  The story continues on.  Perhaps this film will help us to hear that story.

Note:
1. http://calloftheforest.ca/