The Thousands

Mark Lewis isn’t your average documentarian, and the 3D follow-up to his 1988 cult classic Cane Toads: An Unnatural History is unashamedly anthropomorphised and rollickingly entertaining. What makes it so special is Lewis’s wry deployment of cinematic clichés, and his fine balance between seriousness and absurdity. He brings out eccentricities in everyone he interviews, but the tone is never mocking. Zoologists mimic toad calls; cane farmers fulminate; entrepreneurs enthuse; environmentalists plead; and ordinary Australians hilariously re-enact their toad encounters. The toad-licking stoner dog had me in stitches.

From just 102 animals, native to South America but introduced from Hawaii, an estimated 1.5 billion toads have wrought devastating changes to the ecologies of Queensland and the Northern Territory. This is a war movie, complete with heroic close-ups, orchestral soundtrack and sweeping panoramas of toads hopping across mighty landscapes. But it’s even-handed. Despite their ugliness and inexorable spread, the toads aren’t presented as explicitly malign; if anything, Lewis seems to advocate coexistence. Bells toll for the gassed toads dumped in mass graves by the volunteer Kimberley Toadbusters. And in perhaps my favourite moment, the camera swerves delicately away from two mating toads as gentle music plays.