Film Review
Acclaimed writer, journalist and television producer
Frédéric Lepage makes his directing debut with this
personal reflection on man's relationship with the natural world,
although it is hard to know just what audience he is aiming it
at.
Sunny et
l'éléphant is far from being a masterpiece - its
tendency for gratuitous sentiment milking and superficial
characterisation render it suitable only for a child audience - but it
has an innocence and charm that make it a welcome alternative to
comparable soulless animal-themed adventure films from Hollywood and
Disney.
With its pantomime villains and painfully trite plot involving animal
exploitation, the film manages to be even less sophisticated than the
exploits of a certain bush kangaroo of the 1960s, but the stunning
location photography and striking images of elephants in their natural
habitat just about makes up for this. If Lepage was
intending to win an audience over to his conservationist cause, he has
certainly failed. If, on the other hand, his aim was only to make
a pretty film for very young children, he hasn't fared too
badly.
Sunny et
l'éléphant will delight many a five-year-old,
although it will probably drive most adult viewers out of the
house. In any event, Lepage has botched a golden opportunity to
make us aware of our responsibilities to our world and the magnificent
creatures we share it with.
© James Travers 2011
The above content is owned by frenchfilms.org and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
Sunny, a teenage orphan, lives and works with elephants in the forests
of Thailand. His dream is to become a cornac, an elephant driver,
but this is unlikely to become reality as he belongs to the wrong
tribe. With the forestry industry becoming increasingly
mechanised, Sunny and his cornac friends are driven to Bangkok, where
their elephants are exploited by unscrupulous businessmen as a tourist
attraction. A European veterinary offers to help the cornacs to
return to their homeland, so they can watch over their forests and
protect the native elephants...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by frenchfilms.org and must not be copied.