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- Released: March 24, 2009
- Directed by: Suemay Oram, Jackie Osei-Tutu
- Running time: 45 min
- Rating 3.5/5
Synopsis
My Thoughts
I've previously reviewed Christian: The Lion at World's End, which is a 1971 documentary about the exact same subject as today: Christian the lion, a cub raised as a pet in London who would eventually return to Africa in an attempt to re-introduce him to the Kenyan wilderness.
While the previous documentary was made as everything regarding Christian's "re-wilding" was happening, this one is obviously made years after the fact, just after the "reunion" clip with Ace, John (the cub's owners) and a now-teenage Christian went viral on YouTube. This clip sparked some new interest, and with the older documentary being good but a bit dated and not telling the full story, this documentary was made.
I honestly think that this one is the documentary out of the two that tells the more complete picture. Lion at World's End was shown predominantly from George Adamson's (the person trying to get Christian to adapt to life in the wild) point of view and not really anyone else's, which felt a bit incomplete as there are a lot of other people, most notably Ace and John themselves, who weren't even given an interview, despite having been major players in Christian's life.
This documentary does include interviews with a lot of people who knew Christian, or people who are related to those who knew him. Unfortunately Adamson is no longer around to give any interviews as he was murdered years ago by some poachers in Kenya. And don't get me wrong, the other documentary being primarily told by Adamson is still valuable. But it feels very one-sided and there's so many more players in this whole story. So I think it's very good that this documentary interviews Ace, John and many others who knew the lion.
The story is still the same as before, but now tells the entire story. The 1971 documentary ends before Christian fully returns to the wild. This one delves into the entire story that we know of, with the lion leaving behind Adamson in favor of the wilderness of Kenya permanently in 1973. He was never seen again.
I've said my doubts before in other reviews about similar stories: I don't think a lion like Christian can be fully and successfully re-wilded. He never is shown having learned how to hunt (something that's not touched on in either documentary or the book by his owners), his artificial pride assembled by Adamson left him prior to him leaving meaning he was alone, and he's fully accustomed to human contact due to him having spent most his life up until now with humans. Even Adamson interacted with his pride directly and hands-on. So the chances of Christian posing a threat to humans is a possibility as he's fully accustomed to them.
Another lion Christian temporarily lived with, Boy, ended up being a danger to humans and killed one of Adamson's assistants, resulting in him having to be shot. It's not out of the question that something similar will happen to Christian as well. Even if he were to approach people with good intentions, the chances of him getting shot for being dangerously close is very real.
That said, I do still really appreciate this documentary for once more telling the story through a more modern lens and interviewing a lot of people. I wouldn't say it's more detailed than the earlier documentary as that one was much longer, but this one is the overall more complete picture with it knowing the ending and all.
We don't truly know how Christian's story ends as he left Adamson's terrain behind in '73 and was never seen again, but let's just hope for the best, even if it isn't the most realistic. I do truly hope that he managed to gather himself a pride and survive in the wild, but with what we know about his past as a pet I do think this is rather unlikely. Still, a good documentary about the subject.
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