"Stop to smell the rivers" - a review by pearlyWildness is a documentary about two prominent Tasmanian wilderness photographers: Olegas Truchanas and Peter Dombrovskis. Both migrated to Australia and found the south western part of Tasmania a beautiful place to photograph. They met and had expeditions together, and then both championed causes to save and protect Tasmania's rivers, lakes and surrounds.
Visually, Wildness is amazing. The cameras visit many of the places that Olegas and Peter photographed, and compare the places through their own lenses with the photographs that were taken. There are also plenty of stills of photographs that the two men took, which made me want to run out and buy one of their books and plonk it right down on my coffee table.
But more than this, there is the story of these men who came to Australia and did more to save its natural beauty than most of the people who have lived here all their life ever did. Having lived through war, they could recognise how special a place this wilderness was, and they did more than just whinge about its devastation. Both men have since died, but their wives and friends are interviewed, and there is archive footage of them talking about the land too.
Before seeing Wildness I'd never been particularly interested in going to Tasmania, even though I'm about as close to it as you can be without being there. But this film did leave me with a desire to see these places with my own two eyes, and to think about what's around me a little more. | 
