Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle
Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle — had the tone of a wonderful myth or legend, especially towards the last third of the movie. The film gave the sense that this story had been passed down from generation to generation as a lesson to the community of how beautiful and sacred the jungle and animals are, and how tragic it is to be disrespected by humans. The movie itself is graphically beautiful. The landscape and rainforest depicted are incredibly vibrant.
Background
This newest adaptation of The Jungle Book, produced by Warner Bros, is featured on Netflix, starring Indian American boy actor Rohan Chand as Mowgli. This is the fourth major film rendition of the Jungle Book, and had no musical song component. The Jungle Book adaptations are based off the 1894 stories by English author Rudyard Kipling. Previous film versions were the original animated Disney one in 1967, the Disney one in 1994 starring Jason Scott Lee as a young adult Mowgli, and the Disney one in 2016 starring Neel Sethi as Mowgli.
Diversity
Starting off, I like how the film title focuses on the boy Mowgli. I also appreciate how the film starred an Indian American actor, and didn’t white wash the story (low bar, given). Warning, spoilers ahead.
The first part of the movie was great. Halfway through the film, it was stressful to see a white guy savior introduced to the story, especially acting as the “civilized” person amongst the Indian locals and silently judging Mowgli for being so “barbaric”. The portrayal reeked of colonization and condescension.
However, the story did end up painting the white man as the villain and disappointing false idol to Mowgli in the end. Much to my relief, the film didn’t have the white man take over the storyline as a white savior. The film was heading in that direction, but took a wise turn that respected the local Indian setting.
For an American made movie that takes place in India — it did decent for diversity, featuring 2 out of the 3 humans in the film as Indian and 1 as Caucasian. The movie couldn’t help but feature a white man in a foreign location, but it was tolerable considering the amount of white washing that could’ve taken place.
I’m curious why none of the animals in India had Indian accents. Is it that Hollywood thinks Indian accents are “uncool”? If Netflix is based in the US, I can understand why the animals might have American accents if not Indian, but why British and Australian?
Also, why are all the animal characters voiced mostly by white actors? It’s not a huge problem, since the actors are represented by animals anyways — but it is still a strange and common pattern. The lead animal characters Bagheera, Baloo, Shere Khan, and Kaa were voiced by Christian Bale, Andy Serkis, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Cate Blanchett. I think Kal Penn, Mindy Kaling, Aziz Ansari, and Priyanka Chopra would’ve been excellent choices for voice actors.
Rohan Chand did a fantastic job as Mowgli. His expressions and portrayal were especially compelling in the scene where he discovered poor Bhoot dead and taxidermed on display in the hunter’s quarters. Frida Pinto did a great job as the motherly human figure to Mowgli, although I was disappointed that she had such a minor role.
Overall, I think Mowgli: Legends of the Jungle was pretty great for diversity. It prominently featured an Indian lead protagonist within the story set in India.
Incluvie rating:
- 5 celebrates diversity
- 0 ignores diversity
- -5 is hateful towards diversity
