The Jungle Book Official US Teaser Trailer - april 2016

[peter]

I saw the new Jungle Book two weeks ago. Although it had been running for two weeks, the cinema was still loaded. They said it wasn't for children, but I saw many on that day and they thoroughly enjoyed it. After the movie, they were the ones who yelled and applauded. Never saw that before. At least, children were never involved. 

The new Jungle Book is very different from what I expected. I didn't see Kipling anywhere and it no longer is your typical feel-good story. I wouldn't know how to describe it in a few sentences, but I do know it stuck. Quite something for animation.

Two weeks after the event, I still feel unable to tell you what I think. Although in some ways close to a dream, it's also raw and harsh at times. It's about the Indian jungle a century ago, and then it's not. Maybe it's about something that was lost when humans changed their ways half a century ago or so. I seldom, if ever, read something I would describe as essential on humans and wildlife nowadays. A few reports about clashes between villagers and wild animals somewhere in Africa or India, indignation about dentists hunting lions and a bit more here and there. And that's about it. Humans and animals now really seem to live in two different worlds.   

I read some books written in the days of colonisation. Hundreds of thousands born and bred in the west went to Africa and Asia to work for large firms and governments. They had to cope with conditions they didn't really know about and there was a lot of resistance. Dutch authorities reported about strange phenomena every now and then. My father told me about something known as 'tropical madness' in what's now Indonesia. At times, well-trained men disappeared while exploring wild places. Most were never seen again, but some were found and sent home to recuperate. After one or two years, they returned. Although declared sound and fit, not a few of them got lost again. At times, they found their notebooks, clothes, shoes and tent somewhere in the jungle. The camp was clean, neat and in good order, except for the owner of the clothes who was nowhere to be seen. The prints he left were followed, but in all reports I read they suddenly disappeared. Remember these were excellent trackers able to find elusive animals in dense jungles. Even tiger hunters came up empty.       

So what happened? They never found satisfactory answers, but those who wrote books in which they featured did a bit of research. What they found, is this. People who had gone missing in wild places had talked about their experience back home. What doctors heard, often was a bit weird. So much so, they were not prepared to risk their reputation on it. In most cases, the 'patient' was sent to a sea resort to recover. After he had stopped talking about hidden kingdoms ruled by animals and things like that, he was declared sound and fit for work. In Surinam, Indonesia and New-Guinea, things went well for some time. Nobody ever noticed anything out of the ordinary. He started exploring wild places again or picked up building roads. Everything went well for some time. Than, one day, he was lost again. They never found someone who had disappeared a second time. Remember those who got lost often were well-trained, intelligent and experienced men with a family, not drop-outs. 

In a way, it's not that different from feral children. Hewett wrote about them in his book ('Jungle trails in northern India'). Although stories about feral children still often are dismissed, these children were very real. It also is a fact they had survived on their own in the wild for many years. Very often, they were found close to animals. They didn't die in the wild, that is. They died in the orphanages where they sent them after they had been found. Not one of them adapted to society. Most perished well before their time.

So what is behind all this? And what had they seen? Why was Kipling able to write the story that got famous? My advice is to visit wild places for a prolonged period of time. Most of us won't last very long, as it's a very different world. As to what happens when you get lost. My guess is the children in the cinema who saw Jungle Book knew. 

The problem is there is a difference between knowing and being able to tell. Human language just isn't the correct tool to describe things that need to be felt and sensed. This is how it works in music and arts and this is how it works in the wild. There's no use for words when you want to inform someone on something essential. You do it in a different way. A much faster and more clear way. You use a posture or a stare to transfer information and the other immediately understands. If he or she doesn't, it's tickets: he won't make it and there's nothing you can do to change that. I also think you can transfer emotions or insights without gestures or sound. But it requires the ability to feel and this is something very different from what we are made to believe in adds or movies. When you live a life in which this kind of communication is crucial and you succeed, you will never be able to adapt to humans and human society again. Nor, maybe, would you want to.

I thought I saw something of what I mean but can't explain in Jungle Book, but I could be wrong. The nice thing about art is there are many different interpretations and explanations. Not one of them is right. They all are. Reply