Director
Liversedge describes this film as "the real Lion King",
and he's absolutely right. His crew spent two years filming
lions in Botswana's Kalahari Desert, capturing the real-life
dramas and relationships, and then editing all that footage
into a 40-minute Imax film. And the resulting film has a
startlingly strong narrative structure that really grabs
hold, giving the lions personalities without humanising
them.
The story centres
on an old lion king, watching over his isolated water hole
with his two lionesses--one older and experienced, the other
younger and impetuous. As the lionesses prowl for food among
the animals that stop for a drink, the lion lounges in the
shade waiting for his food. But his life isn't purely leisure:
besides fathering the older lioness' cubs, his role is to
protect his women and their territory from an encroaching
young male.
The intimate
nature of Liversedge's footage is astonishing. He gets his
cameras extremely close to the lions, catching the action
and interaction with remarkable detail. And there are a
lot more than lions--this waterhole is visited by herds
of moody elephants, jittery giraffes, daredevil springboks,
cheeky meerkats and other wildlife, all of which interacts
in a complex way with the lions. And the dusty, desert landscape
takes on a life of its own as is cycles through various
seasons.
It does at times
feel like a TV documentary, with its straightforward, descriptive
narration and unadorned, sun-drenched cinematography. The
difference is the Imax format, which throws us right into
the excitement of each moment, most notably when the lionesses
are pouncing on their prey. And the narrative flow of the
film also makes it far more involving and satisfying than
most informative docs. Because it's so entertaining that
we're not aware how much we're learning.
