Movie Thoughts: Living with Wolves (2004)

 

• Released: 2004
  
• Directed by: Erik Zimen
  
• Running time: 50 min
• Rating 3/5

Synopsis

Erik Zimen takes a look at the return of the wolf in (western) Europe.

My Thoughts

Alex reviewing another wolf-related piece of media, who'd have known? Here's a documentary which I got in a DVD-set of three! As mentioned above, Swedish scientist Erik Zimen explores the return of wolves to western Europe.

Overall this was a decent documentary, but I wouldn't call it outright good. It uses quite a few outdated facts and terminology for wolves, which they might not have known at the time, but by now it hasn't aged very well. The documentary also started to drag a bit in the end if you ask me. 

But on the other hand, I do like this more optimistic take on wolves returning to western Europe. As I am writing this in the early 2020s, wolves have made a successful return to quite a few western European countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France. So this documentary was obviously made before then, but it's still a more hopeful take on the situation. Not everyone at this time wanted wolves to return to the west (heck, a lot of people still want them gone again these days), but Zimen's documentary shows a carefully optimistic view. 

I also appreciate how he didn't just interview a few people, but he actually traveled across Europe to ask many different people of different walks of life on their stance on wolves. Paints a bigger picture rather than just that of the director. Even if I disagree with them, I do think that anti-wolf people are still allowed to make their voices heard and it just overall feels much more complete than if the director were to only give his own or a few pro-wolf people's thoughts on the subject matter. As much as a pro-wolf person I am, it is still an issue with nuance and I feel that refusing to listen to anti-wolf people isn't helping the situation. So nice that Zimen took this into concideration when making this documentary.

So not the strongest documentary on wolves I've ever watched, but certainly it has some good going for it. Not really a recommendation, but if you like wolves and documentaries about them you might as well watch it. Just know that some of its information is a tad outdated going in.