Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins

A prequel to the television series of the same name, Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins is something of an oddity - a fictionalised nature documentary, weaving astonishing footage around an almost soap-opera-like story.

Perhaps an inherent problem of the set-up is that this narrative often feels simplistic - too fanciful to educate us on meerkat behaviour, and not engaging enough to work as a piece of storytelling. The film eventually ends up in a rather uninspiring limbo between nature documentary and low-grade Disney knock-off. Plus the plot itself has a distinct whiff of Shakespearean intent, and whether this is unsettling or beguiling is entirely up to yourselves.

It is, however, entirely possible to look past this relative failure for one reason - the footage on display. The images captured here are the fruits of two years of labour, and what's created is an impressively intimate portrait of meerkat society. From burying the cameras in the meerkats burrows to show the pups at their most vulnerable to some breath-taking shots of them viciously defending their home turf, this is some of the best nature film-making you'll see.

Recommendable only for the fascinating footage that forms its basis - and certainly not for Whoopi Goldberg's close-to-insufferable narration - Meerkat Manor still gets a relatively shaky thumbs up. With rodents this cute, who would blame us?



Released on DVD on 2nd November 2009 by Momentum Pictures.

Written by Ross Sweeney.