I have often felt that there are movies,
and then there are Disney movies. Those people at the Walt Disney Company seem
to bring magic to whatever project they take on, even if it is just producing.
Their latest, director Jon Favreau’s adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s classic
tale The Jungle Book definitely works
to validate their reputation as magicians.
The tale of the little boy abandoned in the
Indian jungles and brought up by a pack of wolves is synonymous with childhood,
or should be. I remember my parents telling me the story when I was a little
child, bringing alive all the characters until I could almost pretend that the
animals were my own dearest friends. Later, I spent many delightful afternoons watching
Disney’s earlier adaptation of the tale on TV over and over again. So when I
chanced upon a poster of the latest movie adaptation of the tale, I made a
beeline for the theatre the very day the film was released here, this last
Friday.
Directed by Jon Favreau and released in 3D
format, the movie is a feast for the senses. This was also the first time that
I watched a movie in 3D, and it was a rewarding experience. The only time I had
watched a 3D piece was at Science City, the science and technology park in
Kolkata. There the 3D effect is such that the characters seem to jump out of
the screen towards the viewer. That can get quite unnerving at times,
especially since the piece I viewed there had mice jumping out and an enormous
snake opening its jaws at the audience. But here the third dimension was shown inside the screen, almost as if the
screen were a hollow tube in the direction opposite to the audience. The sense
of depth did much to add to the beauty and real feel of the movie. All the time
I was watching the movie, I almost felt like I was in the jungles myself, running
about with Mowgli down the long stretches of dense undergrowth.
I must admit – shamefacedly – that I do not
remember the original story by Kipling in detail. But that I think has helped
me be less critical of the discrepancies between the story and the movie,
because frankly that does not matter. What does matter is the way you are swept
off your feet and whisked into Mowgli’s world from the very opening scene. The
camera follows Mowgli’s route as he competes with the wolf cubs in a race with
Bagheera the black panther training him to become more ‘wolf’. Right from the
start one feels Mowgli’s anguish, his desperate attempts to fit in to the world
of the wolves, to give up all his ‘man-ness’. He is frustrated when he is
refused entry to the wolf council and watches from afar as the council repeats
its vows about ‘the law of the jungle’. The movie follows a linear narrative,
right from the time of the great drought and the ‘Water Truce’ at the Peace
Rock where all the animals gather around and drink together. Hunting is
forbidden because water is more important than food. It is there that one first
encounters Sher Khan, the great Bengal tiger, the one creature that every
animal in the jungle fears, that even Akela, the mighty leader of the wolf pack
does not challenge if he can help it. He is despised by the jungle community
for his wanton cruelty, his tendencies of hunting for pleasure. But Sher Khan
himself has a deep seated hatred for man, ever since one man – Mowgli’s father,
as we later learn – burnt his face with fire and blinded his left eye. He is
hell bent on killing Mowgli, and vows to take the man cub’s life once the rains
return and the Water Truce ends. This puts the pack in a dilemma, which Mowgli
himself relieves them of by promising to go back to the man-village from whence
he came. Accompanied by Bagheera he sets off on his journey home, and here his
adventures begin.
There is a chase sequence just afterwards
where Bagheera senses Sher Khan’s presence in an open stretch of tall grass and
manages to warn Mowgli mere seconds before the tiger leaps onto them with a
blood curdling roar. That sequence first made me realize exactly how good the
animation really was; I had completely forgotten that the animals were just computer
generated cartoons and not flesh and blood creatures, and I flinched at how
narrow an escape Mowgli had from Sher Khan. The sense of reality was further
enhanced in the subsequent sequence of Mowgli escaping with the help of a herd
of Nilgai running down a muddy ravine. The brilliance of the cinematographer
Bill Pope is captured beautifully in a scene where a few drops of water get
splashed on the screen from the hooves of the Nilgai, adding to the sense of
urgency and danger. At no time does the movie exude a false sense of comfort
and security, despite being a children’s feel good production. There is a sequence
of a landslide caused due to the heavy rains that brings down an entire face of
the cliff, washing off the Nilgai and Mowgli to the swirling river below, a
reminder of exactly how dangerous the Indian jungles actually are for all its
inhabitants.
The story of Mowgli’s childhood where he
first hears of the ‘Red Flower’ of the humans that destroys everything it
touches is told by Kaa the python while she hypnotises Mowgli and tries to
crush him in her deadly embrace, just to be saved in time by Baloo the bear. It
is an interesting touch to change the python’s gender, and personally I feel
that this is somehow more apt; Kaa is almost the femme fatale, the siren whose
attraction is irresistible to man. Only I wish they had included that one line
so synonymous with the great snake – ‘Look
at me, come to me!’ I remember being terrified and fascinated at the same
time as a child of that one line that had even held Baloo hypnotized in the
original tale.
Baloo the bear is a sweetheart; the epitome
of sloth who usually had others get his honey for him but eventually climbed a
steep rock face and fought a monkey pack to save little Mowgli. Baloo encourages Mowgli to stop
worrying about becoming a wolf and embrace his ‘man-ness’. He convinces Mowgli
that there is nothing wrong with his little ‘tricks’ that Bagheera so detests;
that in fact it is the ‘Mowgli way’ of doing things. It is those tricks that
Mowgli uses to gather honey for Baloo, and eventually even rescues a baby
elephant from a trap set by the human, an act that astonishes his friends and
gains him the respect of the mighty elephants, the lords of the jungle.
In the meantime, Sher Khan kills Akela and terrorizes
the wolf pack, waiting for Mowgli to return so that he can kill the man cub. Baloo
and Bagheera both keep this news from Mowgli, but when Mowgli is kidnapped by
the ‘Bandar-log’ and taken to their king, King Louie the Gigantopithecus, the
large ape tells him of Akela’s death while trying to coerce the secret of the
Red Flower from Mowgli, which he thinks will make him like the humans. Baloo
and Bagheera manage to fight the monkey hordes off, and King Louie dies when
the old structure of his palace collapses on him, but Mowgli already sets off
to avenge Akela. He steals fire from the village nearby and runs back to the
pack, starting a jungle fire behind him. There the final battle of the animals
against the evil tiger is hair raising just as it is beautiful. Eventually
Mowgli manages to kill Sher Khan using one of his tricks, this time encouraged
by Bagheera himself to fight the tiger like a man and not a wolf. The movie
ends with the same shot as the opening scene; of a race between Mowgli and his
brothers and the panther, only this time Mowgli wins by his tricks which are
now an accepted part of his identity. There is a sense of closure, the coming
of a full circle, where Mowgli has now truly become a part of the jungle
community with all his uniqueness, his man-ness. As the narrator, Bagheera ends
with the wondering pronouncement of how he had never seen all the animals of
the jungle come together before as they had done in the destruction of Sher
Khan, the bane of the jungle.
The one thing that struck me was the extent
of power and ability in the human voice. All the animals, all the computer
generated characters were brought to life, were given emotions and personality
merely through the voices of talented actors. Rakhsha, the mother wolf was
voiced by Lupita Nyong’o, and she brought the quiet dignity and strength and
fierce motherhood to the wolf who had taken the man cub in as one of her own. Bagheera,
voiced by Ben Kingsley exuded power and self restraint and love and
companionship and even the occasional subdued humour. The wonderful Bill Murray
voiced Baloo the bear, and no one could have brought out the character of the
happy go lucky bear who lived life his own way and could die for his friends
without a second thought better than him. The lovely Scarlett Johansson as Kaa
had a bit role with no more than a few minutes’ of dialogue, but she was a
fantastic selection with her sultry voice that was irresistible even as it
oozed danger. Christopher Walken voicing King Louie the Gigantopithecus was
comic even in his hostility and positively scary demeanour. And Idris Elba as
Sher Khan was just phenomenal. That a man could bring so much hatred and power
and pure evil into a cartoon with just his voice has to be seen to be believed.
The director deserves applause for just his selection of actors to voice the
characters if nothing else.
Twelve year old newcomer Neel Sethi as
Mowgli is an appropriate casting selection. He brings in energy and charm even
as his demeanour truly speaks of a boy brought up among the animals. What is
commendable is how natural his acting is, especially since all the talking he
does is essentially to himself on set. He had to imagine all the characters
that he was addressing, and he does that beautifully. But unfortunately for him
it is his imaginary co-stars who really steal the spotlight, making him look a
little like a supporting artist.
There is one little thing that I cannot
help but mention, not as criticism but just as a bit of harmless humour for my
fellow Indian moviegoers – the Westerners do make a terrible mess of pronouncing
our words. They have managed not to distort most of the Indian words too badly,
but watch out for their pronunciation of ‘Baloo’ and ‘Bandar-log’. It will
definitely make you giggle a little
The
Jungle Book is a tale of joy and laughter, of tears
and pain, of love, of companionship, of adventure, of acceptance. It is
wonderful how a good author or a skilled director can pack in so many flavours
of adult life in a tale that is ostensibly for children. Do watch the movie, in
the movie theatre if you can. The big screen and the 3D effect will really make
a difference. And do you children a favour and take them along. You will be gifting
them a lovely memory of childhood that they will look back upon for years to
come.
