TRACK: SEARCH FOR AUSTRALIA’S BIGFOOT *** Australia 2020 Dir: Attila Kaldy. 57 mins
As a fan of well known documentaries like Blue Planet I enjoyed this one that is shot and narrated in much the same way.
If Bigfoot really exists then chances are it’s gonna exist in the remote mountains of North and South America or Australia’s vast and dense bushlands. However, as this film stresses, the Yowie (Australia) and the Yeti (America) are more likely to be similar but unrelated hominid species of ape that simply live in similar natural environments and thus look and act in similar ways.
This beautifully shot and well narrated documentary by Moonlark Media does it’s best to convince you of the validity of the existence of a huge and hairy ancient hominid creature. There are more chances of Bigfoot being real when I watched this than the Loch Ness monster anyway.
The camerawork is visually stunning and the combination of short interviews and well placed captions really draws you into a mysterious quest to try and capture the creature that lives in the Southern Blue Mountains 80km west of Sydney to great effect. Daljit Kundi’s background music is perfect for the short film too and his sound effects are really well placed. As the variety of well trained parapsychologists, technical experts and eyewitnesses delve deeper into a difficult quest to track down an 8-10 foot hominid ape you are drawn into a well shot story narrated by producer Attila Kaldy that is full of mystery, dark scepticism and nice and earthy Aussie humour.
In the light of the modern world, there are many reasons why a creature so large and powerful but most probably shy and gentle should choose to stay hidden in the 2000km worth of vast and dense bushlands of Australia away from modern humanity’s endless and sometimes ravaging curiosity. But the lure of just getting a confirmatory sighting drives us on through this enthralling documentary.
Friend or foe? Friend maybe, but the smell of ‘cat piss’ might be a warning not to disturb Bigfoot’s natural paradise too much. In a strange appearance of the bush at night halfway through the film the silhouette of the trees actually spelled ‘IT’ so there is plenty of tense interest here for the more discerning viewer.
The overarching question that the film tries well to address is this:-
Do we follow our rational scientific mind and try and discover the existence of different humanoid species on our planet for the evolution of ourselves or go with our self-preservation instincts and leave them in peace if they are quite happy where they are?
A natural Catch 22 mystery. Knowing too much can destroy ancient and fascinating mysteries as well as the beautiful planet that we are all privileged to be living upon.
Review by Nathan Sandiford