Disney film ‘African Cats’ depcits a wild life
The Disneynature series, released to coincide with Earth Day
each year, continued with a new documentary about life on the
African Savannah. The film
”
African Cats
”
is narrated by Samuel L. Jackson and follows the adventures of
two large cat families in Kenya.
The first is a lion pride that lives south of a seasonal river.
The pride includes a lion that filmmakers named Fang, a bevel of
lionesses and a mix of cubs. The narration focuses on Layla, the
oldest of the lionesses and the one with the most experience with
hunting, and her cub Mara.
Disney film ‘African Cats’ depcits a wild life
The Disneynature series, released to coincide with Earth Day each year, continued with a new documentary about life on the African Savannah. The film “African Cats” is narrated by Samuel L. Jackson and follows the adventures of two large cat families in Kenya.
The first is a lion pride that lives south of a seasonal river. The pride includes a lion that filmmakers named Fang, a bevel of lionesses and a mix of cubs. The narration focuses on Layla, the oldest of the lionesses and the one with the most experience with hunting, and her cub Mara.
On the other side of the river, a cheetah mother lives alone. The cheetah, named Sita, has five cubs that she is raising amongst the dangers of the wilderness.
As with the past Disneynature films, including “Earth” and “Oceans,” the latest installment is sparse with the narration. The movie harkens back to the nature films that Walt Disney Studios made in the 1950s and ’60s, which used to air on the Disney channel. Jackson’s voice is only used to emphasize a few points or for comic relief.
The footage itself tells the tales without much dialogue. Viewers watch as Sita tries to protect her three cubs when three adult male cheetahs come into her territory. She stands her ground against the cheetahs, but her cubs scatter through the high grass. She spends a night and a morning, calling out to her missing cubs, sitting up on a small hill so she can be seen above the high grass. Three of her cubs return to her, but two “are taken by hyenas” as the narration explains.
The movie offers insight into the harsh realities that wild animals face each day. Though the narration describes the pride of lions in human terms, even referring to some of the lionesses as sisters and the cubs as cousins, the movie shows that much of what the animals do is instinctual. When Layla is injured in a battle, and it seems unlikely she will survive much longer, she spends time with another lioness (identified as her sister) in hopes that the female will take over care of her cub Mara.
When Layla is ready to die, she heads to a place far away from her family before she collapses. In addition to losing one of their fiercest hunters, the pride faces other challenges. As the river dries up and the herds move on, they must follow where the food goes. Hunting as a group, they manage to find enough game even if they are exhausted from the trek.
But another challenge faces them as a group of male lions from another pride crosses the receding river. The leader of the pride, Kali, and three of his offspring, are looking to expand their territory to the south side of the river.
As the lions are dealing with hard times, Sita and her cubs are faced with their own problems. She, too, is looking for food for her cubs and that requires crossing a crocodile-infested river that is receding. The cubs are reluctant to join her, but they eventually make it across the river. Sita has to teach her cubs to hunt alone and about the dangers that lurk for them. Even though they are the fastest animal on earth, cheetahs quickly become exhausted on the chase so hey have to be leery of enemies.
The cubs learn valuable lessons from their mother, especially when they encounter the pride of lions on the south side of the river.
The movie has a few graphic scenes for smaller children, but is not as bloody as other nature documentaries. The narration cloaks some of the darker moments in flowery language, such as the description of Sita’s cubs being taken by hyenas, which really means killed or eaten.
The personification of the animals, however, was enough to bring tears to some in the audience. As Sita cried out mournfully for her cubs, it was hard not to get choked up, as when Layla set off to her death, far away from her family.
The filmmakers Alastair Fothergill, who worked on the “Planet Earth” series for Discovery, and Keith Scholey, who has also made nature documentaries, did a great job of capturing a lot of poignant moments on screen. The filmmakers do a service to their footage by keeping the narration down and following the animals on their treks. The film is stunning to watch on the big screen and it’s hard to resist the cuteness of lion and cheetah cubs.
A preview at the movie shows that Fothergill is working on another documentary for Disneynature, to be released in 2012. This one, “Chimpanzee,” will follow the life of an orphaned chimp living in the Ivory Coast and Ugandan rain forests. It’s sure to have more stunning footage, along with some tugging at the heart strings.
