The development that makes us human is nothing short of a miracle. The first few years of life are crucial in becoming human beings, as is the case when we learn and develop skills that set us apart from any other species on the planet. We’re not just talking about riding a bike or writing, we’re talking about thinking, feeling, moving … Becoming You tells the story of this development from the most tender point of view: that of children.
The first 2000 days of life
Becoming You is a six-episode docuseries, each of which focuses on developing a characteristic that makes us unique. The different episodes go through the first 2000 days of various boys and girls until the age of 5. The episodes are structured incrementally, so we switch boys and girls as we progress by finding out how we learn certain tasks or skills.
Thus, in the same chapter, always about 40 minutes, we follow the learning of at least 10 or 12 little people of their different ages. In the set of six episodes covered by the docuserie we meet over 100 boys and girls from 11 different countries.
The geographical variety of the improvised actors of this documentary is also to be noted. In the chapter of MoveFor example, we visit a Japanese family restaurant at the same time as the houses in the middle of the sea of the cities of the island of Borneo. A whole mix of environments, languages, ways of life and cultures that allows us to see, more clearly than ever, that humanity is one and we are all equal.
We accompany three-year-olds riding reindeer in Siberia, young Japanese people doing their first run on their own in central Tokyo, or young Londoners taking acting lessons. All told by Olivia Colman and directed by Tom Barbor-Might, who printed this production of unparalleled beauty.
In Becoming You, the pictures trump the words. It is true that storytelling is essential to understand the progress of the young people that we see on screen, but the visual weight of the documentary is more than clear. A production with impressive images that achieve transmit the environment and the reality that the small protagonists live remarkably.
A docuserie which, on the one hand, informs us of the most curious details and, on the other hand, leads us to reflect on human nature itself explained from the point of view of skills and development. A documentary that undoubtedly invites us to value all that we are capable of doing, both as a species and as individuals, to enhance what makes us human.
