Jonathan Hughes makes natural history films with a clear environmental purpose. We recommend his co-directed David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet for its moving account of loss, though its proposed remedies need more scrutiny.
Fi1m perspective
Attenborough’s quiet delivery does much of the work in David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet (2020). His recollections let us understand damage to the natural world over the span of one life. Jonathan Hughes, directing with Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey, keeps that personal account at the centre. We were upset by the way those memories made the losses comprehensible without making them feel small. The film allows the speaker time to be heard, even within its brisk 83 minutes.
Hughes’s earlier credits as a producer and director include The Hunt (2015) and Our Planet (2019). His work brings wildlife footage together with an explicit concern for environmental damage and the possibility of doing something about it. With A Life on Our Planet, that concern takes the form of a personal witness statement. This is a collaborative film, and we would be wary of crediting Hughes alone with its successes. Fothergill, Scholey and Attenborough matter to the result; our enthusiasm is for what they achieve together.
The directors organise the losses without letting them become a checklist, and the wildlife images give weight to the account. We appreciate the effort to make the ecological story understandable without requiring specialist knowledge. Hughes’s preference for balancing bleak information with reasons for hope is evident here. The film wants its audience to leave believing that action is possible. That is a reasonable aim, but the speed at which it gets there is the weakness.
The practical questions need more attention: who can make changes at scale, and what stops them? In making the broad case so approachable, Hughes and his co-directors sometimes hurry past the differences between those being asked to act. A shared concern does not mean everyone has the same power to address it. Start with A Life on Our Planet, but leave time afterwards to question its reassurances.
Biography
Jonathan Hughes, also credited as Jonnie Hughes, is a British director and producer of nature documentaries. He has collaborated with David Attenborough and Silverback Films on multiple projects since 2000.
Hughes directed and produced the 2020 documentary film David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet, on which he is also credited as a co-writer of the companion book. His other credits include producing episodes of The Hunt (2015) and A Perfect Planet (2021).
