‘Duma’ tells the story of a young South African boy who decides to take it upon himself to return his adopted cheetah to the wild in what is one of the best unheralded films of last year.
The film was directed Carroll Ballard - who strikes me as sharing the same mother as Terrence Malick. Both filmmakers seem to make a film only when they want to and when the project is right. Both filmmakers have a gift for filming the intricacies of nature, light and the almost mythical space that humans occupy in that world.
‘Duma’ is only Ballard’s sixth film since he made his directorial debut in 1979 with another family film revolving around a boy and his animal, “Black Beauty.” Carroll Ballard also directed two other great films about the entwinement of humans and animals - 1983’s “Never Cry Wolf” with Charles Martin Smith based on the Farley Mowat novel about a man isolated amongst wolves and the highly acclaimed “Fly Away Home” (1996) about a young girl (Anna Paquin) and her dad (Jeff Daniels) who lead a flock of geese south from Canada (Paquin and Daniels have a slightly different relationship in last year’s ‘The Squid and the Whale’)
The last two films mentioned were both based on true stories - as is ‘Duma’ which is based on the book “How It Was With Doom” written by Carol Cawthra Hopcraft and Xan Hopcraft. The co-writer Xan just happens to be the name of our young protagonist played by Alexander Michaletos (in a very promising debut) who happens upon an Cheetah cub in the middle of a isolated South African road as he and his dad Peter (Campbell Scott) are driving home. In the opening, we see the cub’s mother fall prey to the “circle of life” as it were.
Taking the young cub home to their South African farm where his mother Kristin (Hope Davis) waits, the boy and his cheetah become fast friends and Xan names his new best friend ‘Duma’ - the Swahili word for cheetah. His dad realizes the nature of the beast, however, and prepares Xan for the time when ‘Duma’ will have to be let go. These early scenes of Xan and Duma playing around the farm rather humorously remind me of the great comic strip “Calvin & Hobbes.”
Duma grows quickly and as the time grows nearer to let Duma go, so does a family tragedy. A tragedy that forces the family to move to the city - a move that forces Xan to realize the time has come. Wild Preserve officials are scheduled to pick Duma up in the city, but Xan decides to travel hundreds of miles in African wilderness to free Duma himself. A journey not well planned out to say the least and is a little more than questionable. But who can argue with the mentality of a boy about his best friend?
Taking his dad’s old motorcycle and sidecar, they take off together towards the valley that his dad recommended that Duma be let loose in - a big-cat heaven with plentiful food. Countless miles in, the motorcycle runs out of gas in the desert and the two are forced to take refuge in the remnants of a crashed plane. Here they meet another wanderer, somebody that first seems to be a threat. Ripkuna (Eamonn Walker, who was great as the warlord Andre Baptiste in last year’s ‘Lord of War’), a man who made too many wrong turns in life, who left his village to make big money in a big town, and who now heads west.
He joins up with the boy and his cheetah for possible shady reasons. Surely he knows that a reward and payment for a cheetah could be substantial? As they make their journey, wisdom is shared between the two. This relationship reminds me of the rapport between Mark Twain’s Huck Finn and Jim - an enduring commonality about escape and freedom. And while Ripkuna is not a slave, he certainly seems to be shackled by the constraints of race. Yet instead of a raft, they escape by way of a wind-driven motorcycle that ran out of gas (similar to a sequence in ‘Sahara). Life imitating art with contemporary style maybe?
The journey they make is fraught with family-friendly danger and excitement. Crocodiles ominously dive into the water, lions stalk and peer through the high weeds as thunder and rain beats down one minute and the life-draining sun and heat beats down the next. Swarms of disease-carrying, bloodsucking tsetse flies swoop down on our heroes in what results in the last leg of the journey, where Xan has to really put his courage to the test.
‘Duma’ is a family film but not a kid’s film. There are humorous antics in the film (such as the cheetah riding in the motorcycle sidecar, and a small big-eyed creature called a Bush Baby who joins Xan on his journey) but this is far from, say, Madagascar. This movie plays it straight, and knows that it has a serious story to tell and an honest one. There is no cheap sentiment, no melodramatics or on the opposite end of the child spectrum, no broad antics or poopie jokes.
It’s actually a rather poetic piece of work due to the amazing visual work from Carroll Ballard and cinematographer Werner Maritz. Africa has never looked so good, with amazing wide-open landscapes and great helicopter shots. The extraordinary music is by John Debney and George Acogny complemented by rousing musical performances from ‘Ayub Ogada’ and ‘Afro Celts Sound System’ with Peter Gabriel. Some great soulful stuff that coincides perfectly with the images.
The film is presented in 1.85:1 widescreen and is enhanced for widescreen televisions (1.85 is an odd choice for this type of visually-driven panoramic film, the film in 2.35 would have looked sublime). The special features are unfortunate with just under two minutes of extended scenes and the theatrical trailer. A commentary by Carroll Ballard or a making-of would have been great because films that need a lot of animal handlers always have interesting stories to tell. Ah well…
A film that was unjustifiably buried last year with only a token theatrical release due to it not being commercial enough (read: there are no lemurs in the film singing “I like to push it, push it!), this is the best family film of last year and a film that joins “The Iron Giant” on the great discoveries shelf. I whole-heartedly recommend this to any family who is tired of CGI fluff and recommend it for everybody who likes an old-fashioned, grand adventure.
Duma is now available at Amazon and AmazonUK . Visit the DVD’s database for more information.
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