If you had told me that yet another adaptation of The Jungle Book would be relevant -- dare I say it, even topical -- I would have laughed at you. But that joke would be on me.
In what I would consider to be this year's Life of Pi, Jon Favreau dishes up a visual feast. A sumptuous, engrossing parade of special effects and CGI from a new age, this film is a breathtaking venture that challenged my understanding of how animation can look, especially concerning anthropomorphic animals. Though they chitchat their way through each scene, often with humor, there were precious few moments in which they feel less than real. I often found myself forgetting to view them as artwork rather than real-life beasts.
Beyond the masterful artistry of the animals themselves, Favreau's team puts no small effort into getting the set pieces, backgrounds, and action sequences perfect. The holistic impression left is one of dazzling realism, one in which the supposedly lifelike mannerisms of animals in The Lion King are forgotten as obsolete. We see giant orangutans tearing apart temples, a pack of wolves attacking a tiger, and a bear contentedly licking honey off a comb, and it never once looks out of place. Some special effects in Batman v Superman (among too many other examples) don't work because there's no weight to the effects, so they feel fantastic and inconsequential. That, or the special effects are clouded by billowing dust and smoke, so half the action is hidden anyway. Not so in this Jungle Book, where the bright Indian sun, dappled on leaves, grass, and water illuminates everything.
Favreau and his team demonstrate a clear control of pacing, thematic content, and balancing the special effects with emotional weight. The cast's performances are stellar, and their delivery is matched by the animation hand-in-paw. I would argue that Favreau has a bit less understanding, however, of his target audience, if he even has one. Almost the entire movie is an intense action/adventure with no small amount of violence and terror, though perhaps tempered with the fantasy elements of talking animals. But whereas some scenes are, I imagine, quite frightening for children, other scenes feature the animals bursting into their classic songs. Noteworthy is Christopher Walken's King Louie singing "I Wanna Be Like You" in his iconic Queens accent; then again, the accents in this movie were all over the damn globe, so don't let's ruffle our feathers yet. Some critics complain that the musical numbers take them out of the film entirely; they didn't upset me, but they certainly show that Favreau is desperate for a good box office result by pleasing the children in turn.
I suppose, thematically, we could talk about environmental awareness, climate change, the threat of pollution, poaching, and the endangered species list. But there is one thematic element I found most intriguing.
I haven't read Kipling's original stories, but I remember not particularly caring for the 1967 animated film. One small reason I didn't care for that adaptation was that, at the end, Mowgli leaves his family and friends to become a man, following a young girl into the man-village. It's sort of the opposite of Peter Pan. There's a lot to be said for a film that suggests that fantasy isn't reality, and that ultimately we must grow up and away from our anthropomorphic youth. But I like that this time around [SPOILER ALERT], Mowgli stays in the jungle rather than going to the village. The final scene is of Mowgli resting in a tree alongside Bagheera and Baloo, enjoying their company in peace with no indication that anything will change. At first, I thought it was a cheap Disney-fied way of making a happy ending where a child can remain in his fantasy world without coming back to reality. But since the movie presents itself as so explicitly realistic the whole time, I suspect there's more at work here. I suspect the ending is a celebration that, in spite of being told time and again by the jungle animals that he is a man and must return to the world of humans, Mowgli declares himself autonomous. Not Shere Khan, not the humans down below, not even Bagheera, but Mowgli alone decides his own identity, independent of labels. He chooses to believe the wolves are his family, the panther and bear his friends, and his life will be lived in their company, in the environment he has always known.
P.S. Don't rush out of the auditorium. The first part of the credits are framed by an animated pop-up book reminiscent of classic Disney films as Walken reprises his song. After that number, another song -- this one not sung during the film itself -- begins to play, featuring Scarlett Johansson's silky voice as Kaa the python. In this film, Kaa is a hungrier, more villainous incarnation than in some adaptations, and her song ("Trust in Me") is sung as a haunting lullaby (not unlike Lana Del Ray's "Once Upon a Dream" in Maleficent). It's a strange way to end a Disney film, but well worth a listen.
IMDb: The Jungle Book
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