This beautiful piece of work is a production of the new Disney Nature documentary label, which marks a revival of the Walt Disney Company's historical commitment to large-scale factual filmmaking about the world in which we live. But if the term 'Disneyfied' should spring to mind – suggesting cloying sentiment and a denial of harsh truths – banish it. Certainly there is much here that's ravishing, from the expansive and lushly coloured cinematography (by Matthew Aeberhard, also co-director) to the sweeping score (by the Cinematic Orchestra). But this account of the life cycle of one of nature's showiest big birds doesn't flinch from the unromantic side of life in the wild. Who knew it was so hazardous to be a flamingo? The film focuses upon the flamingo community that lives on the salted waters of Lake Natron in northern Tanzania, and gains its pink plumage from minerals in the algae on the lake's surface. Through the year, the flamingos make mass migrations to optimum spots for feeding and breeding that are no less hazardous than the trips undertaken by their polar cousins in March of the Penguins. (Not that it's a competition, you understand; but on this evidence, flamingos – generally perceived as a fancy-dress, cocktail-party kind of a bird – deserve a little more credit for their guts and survival skills…) For one thing, there are the predatory Marabou storks stationed along the way to pick off little flamingos that don't move fast enough, or can't, because the salt from the lake water has hardened into cumbersome bracelets at their ankles. And, as unfair as it is to judge creatures by their looks, has anything ever appeared more purely evil than a Marabou stork? No wonder Irvine Welsh let their flamingofeasting stand in for all life's injustices in his hallucinatory 1995 novel Marabou Stork Nightmares. Extremes of beauty and ugliness, then, characterise this absolutely compelling account of one of evolution's strange, dramatic and detailed systems, each element of which depends upon each other element working as it should. The Crimson Wing is as baffling, addictive and fantastical as any in-depth analysis of nature's ways, and considerably more gorgeously-crafted than most. But be warned: after seeing it, you may find yourself telling strangers at bus stops random facts about flamingo life.