Elephant Whisperers: Worth the Watch

I may or may not want a baby elephant more than anything ever in my life.

Photo by Matthew Spiteri on Unsplash

Happy April! Today may be April Fool’s Day, but I am not joking when I say that this is the best media I have consumed in a while. And this is coming from someone in Gen Z, the generation that consumes the most media. Do yourself a favor and set aside 45 minutes of your time to watch Elephant Whisperers on Netflix. I promise it is worth the watch.

Elephant Whisperers is a 41-minute-long documentary about an elephant rehabilitation center in South India, specifically Tamil Nadu. The cinematography is excellent, but the storytelling is truly magnificent. The way that the shots flow is very natural, and of course, the camera is clearer than the human eye. The documentary focuses on elephants and humans (obviously) but one of the best scenes is between a mother monkey and a baby monkey.

The documentary gained momentum after it won an Oscar recently and I’m okay with admitting that I had no idea it existed until it won that Oscar.

What does it mean to be truly and genuinely happy? The children at the end of the film who are to serve as the next generation of elephant caretakers know the secret. I marvel at the trust that both parties have to have when a little boy gives an elephant a bath, climbing onto the tusks in order to scrub the top of the creature’s head.

I have to say that my favorite part of the film is at the very, very end when one of the caretakers does one of the elephant’s hair. The two mini ponytails that stick out of the coarse hair on the top of his head remind me of the way my mom did my hair as a little kid.

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