Quick review and tribute to a railway engine

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“These Indians in India are getting too big for their boots lately. Something needs to be done, and soon!”


“I know! Let’s make a movie about remote forests, elephants, tigers, poor people, and throw in the usual binaries?”


“Good idea, I know just the book, and just the right people.”


“Great, thanks, would be wonderful if you could throw in some awards too? Will help ticket sales at those award functions.”


And thus was - probably - born THE ELEPHANT WHISPERERS.


The yellow food-grade plastic tank on top of the cement platform at the side of the elephant’s night shelter sets the trend for much of the rest of the movie. Even the Foreign Correspondents Club in Delhi, tasked mostly with taking photos of the naked mendicants sort, could not have done this better.


Brilliant wildlife shots, it’s the selective choice of human habitats selected for their poverty, which make this documentary a dual play. Get the Euro-Atlantic crowd in for the exotica and the perception building of India as that strange country where elephants are still used for public transport, and get the Indian rich to buy the award ceremony tickets, whilst the flick itself is pretty much free online.


Add stock shots of tigers and monkeys, throw in some honey harvesting from cliffs, mix with landscape of the sort that brings out the best of our monsoon skies. Cinematographically, been done many, many times.

For me - the real India has also to do with those perfect stainless steel bars shown securing the elephant for the night.



Blink, and you miss them.


Note - Gajraj was and is the name given to the WDM-3A series of diesel engines made in India, under licence from the American Locomotive Company. This locomotive and its derivatives, changed the complete character of the Indian Railways, in more than a manner of speaking.


Gajraj


Certainly not whispering, India, the WDM-3A class of elephants.


ps: Elephant Whisperers Bomman and Bellie sue filmmakers for exploitation, demand Rs 2 crore


And another point of view Elephant in the Room?










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