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A Netflix original film Terra Matter Film Studios and Vulcan Productions, 1h 52m Reviewed by Emily A. Baker The Ivory Game is a documentary about the mass slaughter of African elephants and the subsequent legal trade of ivory in China. The film is a Netflix original, produced by Kief Davidson, Walter Kohler and Wolfgang Knöpfler, directed by Kief Davidson, Richard Ladkani with executive producers Leonardo DiCaprio, Paul Allen and more. With African elephants’ numbers steadily declining over the past 30 years, The Ivory Game highlights an issue that is long overdue for public attention. Documentaries as well made as this one are what helps push issues like ivory trafficking to the forefront of peoples minds. The film is beautiful, heartbreaking, action packed and holds your attention from beginning to end. While the audience does get some resolution at the end, the film closes with a very powerful message; “an elephant is killed approximately every 15 minutes. The fight continues.” Although the film covers an issue mainly talking place in Africa and China, anyone with an interest in the environment, mass extinction, elephants or the general wellbeing and rights of non-human animals should seriously consider giving this a watch. This is not an issue heavily covered in popular mass media platforms, and it really should be. As outlined in the documentary, elephant poachers have a rather large interest in driving African elephants into extinction because the rarer ivory gets the more its worth. That fact alone makes the issue of elephant poaching an extremely pressing one. That being said, the film doesn’t just approach the topic through the macro lens that is the threat of mass extinction. The documentary, impressively, also goes down to the micro level and looks at the interests of individual elephants. The film looks at the problem at every angle from the elephant protections in Africa to the elephant killers to the poachers to the ivory warehouses to the sale of ivory in china to the legal status of ivory in china. It is a complex issue and this is thoroughly displayed in this documentary.
What makes this horrifying industry so appealing to poachers is of course money. The Ivory trade is extremely lucrative and with elephants being killed of so rapidly is only making it more so. Poachers will stockpile ivory up in warehouses where it will sit, increasing in value exponentially. The film features these warehouses being raided and the confiscated ivory then being burned. It is an eerie sight, looking in a huge store room packed top to bottom with hundreds and hundreds of tusks. The film is filled with gut-wrenching images like this, be it hollowed out elephant carcasses or a pile of tusks up in flames. The film is also filled with beautiful images too like elephants helping their baby out of a hole or a group of elephants roaming the African terrain. The juxtaposition between the ugly business of murdering elephants for their bones and the beauty of the elephants in their natural habitat is part of what makes this documentary so stunning. Yes, it is important to truly showcase the immense trauma elephants are going through but, when all you show is how a group has been taken advantage of and forget to show all of the amazing things they are, the audience is missing out. Unlike most countries in the world, the sale of ivory is legal in China; because of this virtually all of the trading of ivory takes place in China. In the film it is discussed that the entire future of the elephant species is in the hands of one person; the president of China, Xi Jinping. If he were to ban the buying and selling of ivory in China it would be devastating to the ivory market. At the end of the documentary we see that a landmark decision for China was made that will end the trading of ivory in China by 2017. This was obviously a huge win for elephants. Though, because of the delayed ban elephants are still being slaughtered by the hundreds. As of the posting of this article china is currently shutting down it’s ivory carving centers. All of this is because of the work the conservationists in Africa did as well as the undercover agents in china that were displayed in the documentary. The film does a great job of showing the elephants as independent beings who feel pain and deserve to live. One topic that is discussed is the concept of genetic memory. This is the idea the behaviors and traits can be passed down though generations based on the shared experiences of a species. The way this is presenting in elephants is that they are now often seen hiding their tusks when they know someone is looking at them. Elephants have great memories and so when they see a relative who has died and they are missing their tusks they remember that their family members are being killed and their bones are being taken from the corpses. It is extremely upsetting seeing this; a species learning to hide one of their most beautiful and prominent features for fear of being hunted down for it. The Ivory Game is spectacular. It grabs you by the hand in the first few seconds and doesn’t let you go until its remarkable ending. Even after the credits the audience is left with images of hollowed out dead elephants. The minutes fly by as you witness raids, undercover cover operations as well at hunting down elephant killers in the middle of the night. The audience will see many people over the duration who have a deep love for the elephant species and truly care for the well being of all who are falling victim to the horrifying industry that is the ivory trade. It is in the last few minutes though that the audience is left with hope for a brighter future as we see China make the long-awaited decision to ban the ivory trade within its borders. All is not lost for the elephant and this documentary shows its viewers just that. Comments are closed.
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This is a website about nonhuman animals, written by human animals taking a Society and Animals class at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Archives
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