User Reviews

"Krokodile - Das wahre Leben der Urzeitechsen" is a German nature documentary from 2011, so this one is almost a decade ols now already and I watched it for the first time briefly after its release back then I believe and now again and I think it is still a pretty impressive outcome. The director is Reinhard Radke, a fairly experienced nature documentary filmmaker who I am sure has worked on a lot more than listed here on imdb. Anyway, this one here was made for the small screen and it runs for only 43 minutes, so it is still a short film by imdb standards. The title is fairly telling and non-German speakers will also understand it at least partially (the first word) I am sure. It is all about crocociles, the breeding, the fight for food, the struggling with the sun etc.I think Radke here really found the right measure of scenes focusing completely on crocodiles and scenes that involve the animals that in one way or another have an impact on the species' life. This includes all kinds. Be it gnus (wildebeests) who are in constant danger around crocodiles or birds who actually live somewhat under the (unintentional) protection of crocodiles. Or be it those animals who are greedy and and want to eat the crocodiles' eggs, such as monkeys and monitors, interesting name for this certain lizard species, amybe because they stand so still but still see everything that happens around them and are ready to attack immediately being way faster and stronger too than they actually look perhaps. Anyway, it was an insightful documentary and really informative about crocodiles and I learned quite a bit from this one, also about what can go wrong when it comes to their own offspring as we find out at the very end. As for Radke, this is not the first film from him I found really good. He made a full feature documentary called Serengeti the exact same year and the outcome is something that Bernhard Grzimek would be proud of. But we shall talk about that one on another occasion. Finally, this one here gets a big thumbs-up from me. A definite contender for best short film and best documentary from 2011. It's a shame it is criminally underseen to this day as you can see from the amount of votes this one has here on imdb. but you can change that. Go to Youtube where it is available to watch at this point if you want to. You certainly won't regret it unless nature documentaries are really not your genre at all. Big thumbs up from me. Highly recommended.