Expedition New Guinea-Lost Land of the Volcano (2009)

Directed by: Jonny Young, Annie Backhouse, Jonny Keeling | 150 minutes | documentary

Exploring remote places, meeting indigenous tribes, discovering new species and entering areas never visited by a Westerner, these are the adventurous ingredients for an exciting boys’ book in which many children and also the necessary adults will dream away during the somewhat duller moments that reality everyday has in store for all of us. It’s no coincidence that classic adventure novels about terrae incognitae like Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Lost World” and Jules Verne’s “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” still excite the human mind and imagination. In ‘Expedition New Guinea’ a select group of people, mainly scientists, adventurers, photographers and cameramen, are given the opportunity to enter and explore one of the most pristine areas on earth: the lush, enormously species-rich, but also due to the advancing logging endangered jungles around Mount Bosavi in ​​Papua New Guinea. From the moment the team sets up base camp and begins to comb the area, it becomes clear just how rich the island’s forests are. New frog species, never-before-seen insects, lizards, birds, bats and snakes and mysterious mammals, some of which are still undescribed by science, such as special tree kangaroos, the droll forest avicus and a gigantic rat. What is striking is the lack of shyness in most of the animals that appear in the documentary. It corroborates the often-held claim that shyness in wild animals does not arise from innate instincts, but is usually a direct result of human disturbance or persecution. Animals that have never been in contact with humans are usually quite easy to approach.

Despite the many beautiful discoveries made by the expedition team, ‘Expedition New Guinea’ also shows that a trip to very remote jungle areas is anything but a paid vacation. For example, leeches, torrential rain, oppressive heat, athlete’s foot and unpleasant intestinal parasites are tropical surprises that can make a stay in the wilderness anything but a comfortable experience. But that doesn’t stop the passionate entomologist George McGavin, for example, from risking life and limb to get his hands on a rare and unknown insect. The infectious enthusiasm of McGavin, the acclaimed cameraman Gordon Buchanan and adventurer and presenter Steve Backshall sucks you as a viewer into this adventurous exploration into the unknown. ‘Expedition New Guinea’ is therefore above all a beautiful visual diary in which the biological secrets of a jungle area that has long remained hidden from the eye of mankind are unraveled. It is precisely the unfamiliarity of many of the animals that pass the viewer’s eye that makes ‘Expedition New Guinea’ extra exciting and ensures that the film remains largely unpredictable from start to finish. Although beautiful images, including courtship birds of paradise and unimaginable numbers of moths, are of course not lacking, ‘Expedition New Guinea’ focuses more on information and less on spectacle than many other nature documentaries from the BBC’s stables.

That does not alter the fact that ‘Expedition New Guinea’ is an absolute must, which also offers the viewer an intimate glimpse into the kitchen of practical field biology.