Elephant is a beautiful documentary that follows an elephant herd. This is the second Disneynature documentary on Disney+. There is also another Disney elephant documentary, Whispers: An Elephant's Tale (2000), but it is not a Disneynature production. The film is directed by Mark Linfeld, whose previous films include Growing Up Wild (2016). It is co-directed by Vanessa Berlowitz, she produced other documentaries, and Alastair Fothergill, he also co-directed Dolphin Reef. It is written by Linfeld and David Fowler, whom also wrote Dolphin Reef. The narration is by Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, she was of course duchess when recording the narration, and she is perfect in telling the elephant story and authortative in pronouncing the African words. I think she may have experience in her travels to South Africa. I’m waiting to see the next documentary narrated by Meghan. I would love to see this documentary if it is released at El Capitan. The only slight problem I have with it is the simple title, the movie should have been something like Pathway of the Elephants or The Elephant’s Legacy.
It opens with a map showing all of Africa and the narration notes the Kalahari Desert and focuses on the Okavago Delta. The film is beautiful shifting to a view of the delta that looks bell-shaped and intense green with the water flowing from the Okavango River. The photography of the delta is beautiful. We see the wildlife in the delta; birds, fish, and finally the trunk of an elephant. This is herd of Kalahari Elephants. The underwater shots are also impressive. Then, we get an elephant, Shani, who is 40 years old, elephants in the wild live up to 70 years. Next, we see her one year old son, Jomo, it is said he is playing with other animals, but I think the behavior is that he is practicing chasing them away which is seen later at watering holes. Males stay with the herd until about 14 years. We also introduced to Gaia, the sister to Shani, and the matriarch of the herd. Gaia leads the herd away from the delta sensing that is drying up.
They move to a muddy pool, the mud is used for “stomach issues”, kinda fun and then Gaia calls the elephant out of the pool. A calf is stranded in the mud and Gaia goes to dig him out and clear the mud from his mouth. An interesting directing choice is seeing the elephants’ journey, a thousand miles, through Gaia’s memory. The herd reaches a forest with seedpods and another group of elephants. They reach a dried up watering hole and see an elephant skeleton that the herd touches almost in recognition. Gaia leads them through the desert to an island of baobab trees. The elephants tear into the bark to get at the moisture. We see the herd sleeping and the night animals coming out. They finally reach Victoria Falls called Mosi-oa-Tunya, the Smoke That Thunders. It is a gorge above the waters and Gaia follows flocks of quelea to get to the falls. She crosses the Zambezi River to an island of palm trees, the herd swims across the deep part of the river with the danger of crocodiles, a little startling. The river dries up and the palm nuts are all eaten by the herd so they have to return to the Okavango, now full by the storms. The herd has to travel back through Lion Country! Elephant is a journey with incredible visuals, a very informative story, and features such magnificent animals!
Five Seed pods out of Five!
#Elephant, #MarkLinfeld, #VanessaBerlowitz, #AlastairFothergill, #DavidFowler, #MeghanDuchessofSussex
No comments:
Post a Comment