''Animals Are Beautiful People'' (also called ''Beautiful People'') is a 1974 South African

nature documentary A nature documentary or wildlife documentary is a genre of documentary film or television documentary, series about animals, plants, or other non-human living creatures. Nature documentaries usually concentrate on video taken in the subject's nat ...

written, produced, directed, filmed and edited by Jamie Uys, about the

wildlife Wildlife refers to domestication, undomesticated animals and uncultivated plant species which can exist in their natural habitat, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wilderness, wild in an area without being species, introdu ...

Southern Africa Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme for Africa, United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and ...

, presented with comedic elements. It was filmed in the

Namib Desert The Namib ( ; ) is a coastal desert in Southern Africa. According to the broadest definition, the Namib stretches for more than along the Atlantic coasts of Angola, Namibia, and northwest South Africa, extending southward from the Carunjamba Ri ...

, the

Kalahari Desert The Kalahari Desert is a large semiarid climate, semiarid sandy savanna in Southern Africa covering including much of Botswana as well as parts of Namibia and South Africa. It is not to be confused with the Angolan, Namibian, and South African ...

and at the

Okavango River The Okavango River (formerly spelt Okovango or Okovanggo), is a river in southwest Africa. It is known by this name in Botswana, and as Cubango in Angola, and Kavango in Namibia. It is the fourth-longest river system in southern Africa, runni ...

and

Okavango Delta The Okavango Delta or Okavango Grassland is a vast inland delta in Botswana formed where the Okavango River reaches a tectonic trough at an elevation of in the central part of the endorheic basin of the Kalahari Desert. It is a UNESCO Wor ...

. It was the recipient of the 1974

Golden Globe Award for Best Documentary Film The Golden Globe Award for Best Documentary Film was a Golden Globe Awards, Golden Globe Award that was introduced for the 11th Golden Globe Awards, followed by the 30th Golden Globe Awards before discontinuation after the 34th Golden Globe Award ...

. The film, a critical and commercial success, was independently made by Uys, also known for his later African comedy '' The Gods Must Be Crazy'' (1980).

General description

The film begins in the Namib desert, with the narrator saying: "You'd think nobody could make a living here." But the film proves the opposite and shows the lives of the animals that live there. The narrator concludes: "But to the

Oryx ''Oryx'' ( ) is a genus consisting of four large antelope species called oryxes. Their pelage is pale with contrasting dark markings in the face and on the legs, and their long horns are almost straight and annulated. The exception is the sci ...

and the little creatures of the Namib, this waterless, hostile desert is paradise." The second third of the film shows the rich life at the

and

and the last third of the film focuses on life in the Kalahari desert.

Criticisms

One scene depicts

baboon Baboons are primates comprising the biology, genus ''Papio'', one of the 23 genera of Old World monkeys, in the family Cercopithecidae. There are six species of baboon: the hamadryas baboon, the Guinea baboon, the olive baboon, the yellow ba ...

elephant Elephants are the largest living land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant ('' Loxodonta africana''), the African forest elephant (''L. cyclotis''), and the Asian elephant ('' Elephas maximus ...

giraffe The giraffe is a large Fauna of Africa, African even-toed ungulate, hoofed mammal belonging to the genus ''Giraffa.'' It is the Largest mammals#Even-toed Ungulates (Artiodactyla), tallest living terrestrial animal and the largest ruminant on ...

warthog ''Phacochoerus'' is a genus in the family Suidae, commonly known as warthogs (pronounced ''wart-hog''). They are pigs who live in open and semi-open habitats, even in quite arid regions, in sub-Saharan Africa. The two species were formerly cons ...

s and other African animals eating fermented fruit of the Marula tree. The animals then appear intoxicated, and they stagger around to comic effect, before nightfall comes and they fall asleep. In the morning, we see one baboon wake up, disheveled, next to a warthog, and quietly exit the burrow, as not to wake her. Some experts have claimed that some scenes were likely staged; elephants would be too large, for example, and drink too much water (diluting the alcohol) to get intoxicated.

Classical music

The film uses

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be #Relationship to other music traditions, distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical mu ...

and especially well-known pieces to support a scene. A few examples: * " Brahms Hungarian Dance No. 5" with acrobatic

s * Tchaikovsky's "Waltz of the Flowers", showing the miracle of the blooming

desert A desert is a landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions create unique biomes and ecosystems. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About one-third of the la ...

* Weber's "Invitation to the Dance" orchestrated by Berlioz, featuring the animals' celebration of Paradise's return * Smetana's "Die Moldau", throughout the movie, especially during the river scenes *

Franz Liszt Franz Liszt (22 October 1811 – 31 July 1886) was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor and teacher of the Romantic music, Romantic period. With a diverse List of compositions by Franz Liszt, body of work spanning more than six ...

's "Les préludes, symphonic poem No.3", near the end of the film, during the cloud formation scene * Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Reed Flutes"

Featured species

''This incomplete list does include almost all mentioned species.''

References

External links

* * {{Golden Globe Award for Best Documentary Film 1974 documentary films 1974 films Documentary films about nature Films directed by Jamie Uys Films shot in South Africa South African documentary films Warner Bros. films 1970s English-language films English-language documentary films 1970s South African films