ELEPHANTS! The largest land-dwelling creatures on our planet, majestic and magnificent. The grandest among them rarely fail to inspire awe while the smallest baby elephants rarely fail to bring a smile to our faces. Respected by some humans and mistreated by others, their cultural significance worldwide over the ages is undeniable, as is their appetite!
Elephants: Giants of the Desert (aka Elephants 3D is the newest documentary presentation on the big screen at IMAX cinemas. Directed by Paul Phelan, it tells the story of a type of elephant that we rarely ever think about: Desert elephants! The thing about the desert is that there’s not a lot of food there, and the thing about elephants is that they require a lot of it!
So begins an epic journey across the Namib desert of South Africa during a particularly harsh drought. Narrated by Naomi Watts, Elephants 3D takes us along for the ride as a herd of desert elephants seek nourishment, led by a wise matriarch with decades of memories of various watering holes and desert oases. It will be a long hard road for the entire herd, with the pack needing to travel dozens and dozens of miles every day in scorching 40-plus degree heat.
They come across various obstacles along the way to make this perilous trek just that little bit worse. The oppressive weather is dealt with by taking “sand baths” where the elephants coat themselves in the very desert sands they cross, the only thing available to fight off the sun’s rays and provide a barrier against desert hardened insects. They’ll come up against massive sandstorms, 200kms per hour winds that blast billions of glass-like shards against the herd, 5 million tons of sand is whipped 800 meters high, and a thousand kms long across the Namib desert that our protagonists must face it head on.
But for every step these giants take, there’s someone who needs to take two. Dubbed “Little Foot“, the newest addition to the family, Little Foot is pound for pound Africa’s biggest and cutest baby. We witness as the newborn attempts to learn to use the thousands of nerve endings along her trunk. We also worry as the lack of nourishment in the desert turns Little Foot into a potential snack for onlookers.
This documentary, like all good IMAX docos, should fill young viewers with a sense of wonder and amazement, seeing things that they (and most adults as well) have never seen before now blown up on the giant screen. Apparently, the various cinematographers working on this piece were mostly early in the game, if it wasn’t their first year. It’s shocking as the movie features some of the most impressive shots I’ve ever seen in an IMAX presentation.
The use of 3D in Elephants: Giants of the Desert is stunning across the board. It’s sometimes a given that 3D in an IMAX documentary might lose its wow factor after a while. Yet, time and time again, I was impressed at how Phelan‘s crew kept things interesting. The layering of different focal points ensures that things continually jump out at audiences, whether it be a tree or a huge elephant stamping its way towards the camera, there were various noticeable different levels to the effect.
Also, with the story of Little Foot‘s herd being set in a valley, there are almost always mountainous regions on the horizon, making the visuals pop just that little bit more! An extreme close-up of a lion licking its lips at the thought of chowing down on a wayward elephant calf on the 23-metre-high Melbourne Museum IMAX screen still ranks as my favourite shot of the documentary.
The exciting journey of Little Foot and her family is filled with danger for sure, but undoubtedly there are some creative liberties at play. There’s a narrative at work here and we see all the pieces in amazing detail, but just how connected they all truly were is my question. We see Little Foot and a lion, and are told she’s being stalked, but I doubt these two animals were in the same vicinity of each other if the footage wasn’t filmed years apart entirely. Same goes for the sandstorm and its ramifications.
It’s all a moot point in the end as the documentary does its job and the incredible footage on display speaks for itself. I do feel the filmmakers gilded the lily a tad too much, when a simple story of desert elephants and their life cycle would have been more than sufficient. But this doesn’t take away from what is another wonderful IMAX presentation. Elephants: Giants of the Desert is sure to impress younger viewers.