Mowgli, Legend of the Jungle
Dec. 14th, 2018 01:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
halojedhaLast night a friend and I curled up on the sofa to watch a film. I'd had the songs from The Little Mermaid stuck in my head in the shower that morning, so that was my first suggestion, but when we opened Netflix I was reminded that there was this new live action/CGI film out in a similar Disneyish vein. I heard of it via mr_magicfingers, who works in the film industry and was on the SFXVFX team for Mowgli. I try to watch stuff he's been involved in, if only for the pleasure of seeing his name in the credits :)
So, Mowgli: a straight-to-Netflix original with a big CGI budget. It's enjoyable fluff and beautiful eye candy. I could happily watch those sweeping shots through the jungle for hours, and the background of the closing credit sequence would make a stunning psychedelic video projection (or even desktop screensaver). The score was stunning. Rohan Chand as Mowgli was watchable and convincingly energetic (the enthusiastic running around, and the scene where he's learning to leap and catch a branch and stubbornly hurls himself across the gap time after time, not caring that he keeps landing on his face, reminded me of a certain 13 year old boy I know). And the voice performances were amazing, from a stellar cast including Andy Serkis as a gruffly cockney Baloo (Serkis was also the director), Cate Blanchett as a scary and mystical Kaa, Christian Bale as a wonderfully sympathetic Bagheera, and Benedict Cumberbatch growly and resonant as Shere Khan. I could listen to his voice all day, although if I had to close my eyes I'm not sure I could have told the difference between Shere Khan and Smaug.
It was also very heckleable, with enough silly moments and narrative inconsistencies to result in a fair amount of shouting at the screen.
Mowgli fleshes out the jungle culture, adding elements absent from the Disney version (I haven't read Rudyard Kipling, so can't comment on how much is true to the original) such as the "running", the rite of passage in which young wolves are hunted down by Bagheera, and only join the pack if they are quick and cunning enough to escape capture. It was painful to watch Mowgli being forced to train on all fours by the wolves - I know from past experience how exhausting and inefficient that sort of quadropedic motion is for humans.
The animals all speak English (with English accents, which makes a nice change from most Hollywood films), with very anthropomorphised body language - so Mowgli can talk to all of them regardless of species. Which is fine, but then we have actual humans speaking English (and other languages) in the human village. Mowgli is shown as not able to understand humans or be understood, but otherwise the speech of humans and animals is completely identical. Okay, but is the implication that he might be able to learn to communicate with humans too? Even though, having never learned a spoken language, he wouldn't have developed neural linguistic pathways? Mowgli's body language is suspiciously human too - maybe he learned it from all the anthropomorphic animals.
Not sure how he's meant to be the "Voice" of the jungle at the end when he doesn't have human speech, and never will.
The most unconvincing moment, for me, was Mowgli's induction to the human village. (I refuse to call it the "man-village".) He's initially captured and caged, taunted and attacked by the other kids, and he reacts with understandable savagery. It's painful but believable. Then Bagheera arrives in a heartbreaking scene where he tells Mowgli he can't go home to the jungle, and counsels him to stay and earn their trust. Next thing we know the cage has been opened and Mowgli is for some reason free to wander around, no-one seems worried about letting the savage boy go wherever he likes, a nice lady gives him a wash, and straight away he's trusted with a knife and taught how to cut meat. If they were going to be nice to him, why all the traumatic business with the cage? If he was savage enough to need caging, how come they suddenly trust him without any effort expended on his part?
Oh, and of course the nice lady is the lightest skinned of all the Indian characters (Mowgli is also lighter skinned) because racism is still a thing apparently, and we can't have beautiful sympathetic characters with large eyes and dark skin. UGH.
Speaking of racism, I did enjoy the character arc of the Huntsman, a colonial explorer type (who I keep mentally referring to as the Coloniser - thanks, Black Panther). Contracted by the villages to kill Shere Khan, he shows interest in Mowgli when few others do, and helps him learn human ways and settle into the community. It's uncomfortable to see a white colonist who likes killing wild animals seem initially sympathetic, and very satisfying to see Mowgli realise he's a baddie, after a horrible scene in which he finds the Coloniser's grisly collection of dead animals - including some of Mowgli's friends.
(It's set in India, but all the elephants have tusks. There are apparently no female elephants.)
In summary: perfect film for talking over with a friend because you pretty much know the story already, nicely tense without being too scary (although the bloody bits were convincingly brutal), visually gorgeous fairytale. Don't expect it to make perfect sense, and you won't be disappointed.
mr_magicfingers, who works in the film industry and was on the So, Mowgli: a straight-to-Netflix original with a big CGI budget. It's enjoyable fluff and beautiful eye candy. I could happily watch those sweeping shots through the jungle for hours, and the background of the closing credit sequence would make a stunning psychedelic video projection (or even desktop screensaver). The score was stunning. Rohan Chand as Mowgli was watchable and convincingly energetic (the enthusiastic running around, and the scene where he's learning to leap and catch a branch and stubbornly hurls himself across the gap time after time, not caring that he keeps landing on his face, reminded me of a certain 13 year old boy I know). And the voice performances were amazing, from a stellar cast including Andy Serkis as a gruffly cockney Baloo (Serkis was also the director), Cate Blanchett as a scary and mystical Kaa, Christian Bale as a wonderfully sympathetic Bagheera, and Benedict Cumberbatch growly and resonant as Shere Khan. I could listen to his voice all day, although if I had to close my eyes I'm not sure I could have told the difference between Shere Khan and Smaug.
It was also very heckleable, with enough silly moments and narrative inconsistencies to result in a fair amount of shouting at the screen.
Mowgli fleshes out the jungle culture, adding elements absent from the Disney version (I haven't read Rudyard Kipling, so can't comment on how much is true to the original) such as the "running", the rite of passage in which young wolves are hunted down by Bagheera, and only join the pack if they are quick and cunning enough to escape capture. It was painful to watch Mowgli being forced to train on all fours by the wolves - I know from past experience how exhausting and inefficient that sort of quadropedic motion is for humans.
The animals all speak English (with English accents, which makes a nice change from most Hollywood films), with very anthropomorphised body language - so Mowgli can talk to all of them regardless of species. Which is fine, but then we have actual humans speaking English (and other languages) in the human village. Mowgli is shown as not able to understand humans or be understood, but otherwise the speech of humans and animals is completely identical. Okay, but is the implication that he might be able to learn to communicate with humans too? Even though, having never learned a spoken language, he wouldn't have developed neural linguistic pathways? Mowgli's body language is suspiciously human too - maybe he learned it from all the anthropomorphic animals.
Not sure how he's meant to be the "Voice" of the jungle at the end when he doesn't have human speech, and never will.
The most unconvincing moment, for me, was Mowgli's induction to the human village. (I refuse to call it the "man-village".) He's initially captured and caged, taunted and attacked by the other kids, and he reacts with understandable savagery. It's painful but believable. Then Bagheera arrives in a heartbreaking scene where he tells Mowgli he can't go home to the jungle, and counsels him to stay and earn their trust. Next thing we know the cage has been opened and Mowgli is for some reason free to wander around, no-one seems worried about letting the savage boy go wherever he likes, a nice lady gives him a wash, and straight away he's trusted with a knife and taught how to cut meat. If they were going to be nice to him, why all the traumatic business with the cage? If he was savage enough to need caging, how come they suddenly trust him without any effort expended on his part?
Oh, and of course the nice lady is the lightest skinned of all the Indian characters (Mowgli is also lighter skinned) because racism is still a thing apparently, and we can't have beautiful sympathetic characters with large eyes and dark skin. UGH.
Speaking of racism, I did enjoy the character arc of the Huntsman, a colonial explorer type (who I keep mentally referring to as the Coloniser - thanks, Black Panther). Contracted by the villages to kill Shere Khan, he shows interest in Mowgli when few others do, and helps him learn human ways and settle into the community. It's uncomfortable to see a white colonist who likes killing wild animals seem initially sympathetic, and very satisfying to see Mowgli realise he's a baddie, after a horrible scene in which he finds the Coloniser's grisly collection of dead animals - including some of Mowgli's friends.
(It's set in India, but all the elephants have tusks. There are apparently no female elephants.)
In summary: perfect film for talking over with a friend because you pretty much know the story already, nicely tense without being too scary (although the bloody bits were convincingly brutal), visually gorgeous fairytale. Don't expect it to make perfect sense, and you won't be disappointed.