The Elephant Whisperers Review - A Moving Tale Of Elephant Parenting

There can't be a better time than today to review Kartiki Gonsalves and Guneet Monga's The Elephant Whisperers, which created history at the Oscars 2023. The 40 minutes of this short documentary have breathtaking visuals, a fantastic storyline, artistic frames, and a lot of human emotions with the right message. What more can be expected from a short story that has nothing but the subject of "Elephant Parenting" as its whole story? Isn't that exactly what the Oscar juries might have liked? I guess so. There is so much of Indian culture and nature's beauty in Tamil Nadu that I can feel how foreign juries would have experienced those moments. For them, it must have been like a travel diary with sentiments. Even as an Indian and non-Tamilian, I could believe in those moments as if I were present there live. A couple tissues helped me in the last 10 minutes, and I bid a fond farewell to a complete viewing experience.The Elephant Whisperers tells the story of an indigenous couple named Bomman and Belli, who are entrusted with an orphaned baby elephant named Raghu. As they explain, it's more difficult to parent an elephant because you have to take care of everything from bathing to food to their sleep. The couple takes great pains to ensure that the fragile, injured infant survives and grows to be a healthy juvenile. They also feel sad that they couldn't save others, as humans' negligence and civilization have caused the deaths of many elephants. A strong bond develops between the couple and the elephant, and then there is that emotional farewell in the end that will leave you in tears even though you have only known them for half an hour. The arrival of another elephant, Ammu, also highlights a few events that take place during the parenting of elephants.Written by Priscilla Gonsalves, the documentary is a simple yet heart-touching story of the bond between animals and humans and their coexistence. The cultural impact and traditions are well bound to the accuracy. The Elephant Whisperers also showcases Indian culture and tradition in environmental conservation and how the next generation has to look forward to carrying forward the same work. Every frame is beautifully shot, even if some of them have no elephants or Belli and Bomman. You will enjoy the picturesque presentation on the small screen, while the narration is utterly realistic with no artificial effects attached to it. It may not look grand to cosmopolitan society, but it's the grand story of the small world that's hidden somewhere in a remote place. For them, it's their life, their family, and their existence. For us, it's just a 40-minute sneak peek into their beautiful world.Kartiki Gonsalves captures small small nuances beautifully through her storytelling, and most of the credit should go to the cinematography. Karan Thapliyal, Krish Makhija, Anand Bansal, and Kartiki Gonsalves' framework is simply mesmerizing. The close-ups of an elephant's eyes while crying, the shower through its trunk, then decking up for the annual festival and every close-up of the elephants' cherishing the food, and many more—there are so many frames to leave you spellbound. In one scene, the lady says that the elephant wiped her tears when she lost her kid. How emotionally powerful can one line be? The man cries like a kid when Raghu is taken away, and he is like, "That's my life you are taking away." The Elephant Whisperers defines human emotions subtly without any heavy dialogue. Overall, this 40-minute documentary is nothing less than a memorable and impassioned picnic in an open sanctuary, but with an additional human connect and emotions.