More than just another "animal story."
Followers of St. Francis, lovers of penguins and parrots, rejoice:
Duma
, the gorgeously filmed story of a wide-eyed cheetah and the boy who loves him, is finally in the City Distant. Maybe when the Railyard hosts some ginormous multiplex we won't have to wait quite so long for films of its ilk to show up (though the Screener's worst fear is that it'll be just
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another Dolby-surround-sound venue in which to squander your child's college fund so you can watch Yet Another PG-13 Teen Horror Film). But
Duma
, salivated upon by critics since its poorly executed release a year ago, has been well worth the wait, like an overdue snowfall in a high desert town.
White South African lad Xan (the deceptively matter-of-fact Alex Michaeletos) and his father (Campbell Scott) come across an orphaned cheetah cub in the middle of nowhere, and subsequently adopt it, where it enjoys living high on the hog on the Kenyan family farm, sleeping with Xan (it turns out that cheetahs make two distinct sounds: a yelping bark, used to call other cheetahs-and an odd rusty purr, when they're cosily under the covers or otherwise blissed-out). When the family must relocate to Jo'burg, they make plans to turn the teenaged Duma, mostly grown up and
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fearsomely lanky, over to a zoo. Not if Xan has anything to say about it; he runs away with his reluctant pet, intending to return him to the wild. To say any more would be depriving you of too much pleasure in watching the story as it unfolds, archetypally rather than predictably; we'll confine ourselves to observing that on his journey Xan also encounters young African Ripkuna (Eamonn Walker), and after some prickly initial interactions, the two form a bond which-like Xan's with Duma-winds up far exceeding our ordinary expectations of friendship.
There are a very few wincingly Hollywoodized features to
Duma
, ones you might discuss with your kids afterward, if you take them to see it (though one scene featuring hungry crocodiles nearly put me under my seat, small fry probably won't be fazed at all). Director Carroll Ballard has headed a short but intense list of films that raise the bar for "family" or "animal" movies nearly to Herzog territory (and the surprising thing is that American families, for all of their supposed lack of taste in film, always respond):
The Black Stallion
,
Never Cry Wolf
and
Fly Away Home
, for starters. Yet for all the critical acclaim, Ballard has said in interviews that this may be the last film he directs. If his struggles with Hollywood (evident in the nonexistent-to-sloppy marketing of
Duma
) drive him out of the game, cinema will be the poorer, as this man's work is an asset we can ill-afford to lose.
