A meditation on Yellowstone

"Christmas in Yellowstone" is a one-hour documentary about the Yellowstone national park in Wyoming. It contains great footage of otters, elk, bison, wolves, coyotes, swans and a very inquisitive fox. We also meet nature lovers, people who celebrate Christmas at a hotel in the national park, and a photographer who insists on crossing Yellowstone on skis in the middle of the winter. The movie ends with a hibernating grizzly, almost sinisterly waiting to wake up from its slumber.

Frankly, there is very little action in this documentary. The wolves do try to attack elk and bison, but fail both times. The coyote comes looking for a wounded otter, but never finds him. And the bear, as mentioned, is hibernating...

Still, "Christmas in Yellowstone" is worth watching. It's a meditation more than a documentary. It wants to convey the atmosphere of the place, rather than bombard the viewer with a lot of information. I think it succeeds eminently well. Besides, most of us have seen enough action packed documentaries about wildlife already. I was pleasantly surprised when the wolves failed in their quest to attack the bison, or when the coyote never managed to find food. Most other documentary film makers would probably insist on including the usual hunts and killing sprees. It was also quite entertaining that the only "dangerous" animal was a perfectly ordinary fox, which ran right at the nature photographer Tom Murphy!

If you want an authentic look at a wintery Yellowstone, "Christmas in Yellowstone" is perfect. But if you absolutely want to see a lion attacking a wildebeest for the nth time, you might want to check out something else...