Zarafa: Travel and Adventure

There is something special about travelling. Moving through a landscape, across fields, through valleys, noting the complexity of ridges as mountains spill from peaks to foothills... Though there is little drama in travelling, journeys carry unique emotions: wonder, trepidation, awe. They tie back to fundamental human feelings: curiosity, fear, the ability to find beauty, the capacity to take in new knowledge and expand your cognizance.

As much as I appreciate tight, no-nonsense plotting (a requirement in some genres), most modern fantasies will zip from place to place just to get the plot over with; they ignore the moments of non-action and non-dialogue that do much to imbue beauty and mood into a work. Imagine if Disney's Frozen paused from the relentless sled-chases and wacky musical numbers, and attempted to evoke what it was like to ascend hostile, ice-shrouded mountains. By focusing a little more on the landscape, I think a deeper feeling of enchantment would have been achieved, and the movie would have not felt as surface-level as it does.

Zarafa, a film based on a true event, the a rare film that touches on these emotions. The very basic outline is: in a frame narrative, an African village elder tells a group of children how the first giraffe came to France. In his tale, a young Sudanese boy named Maki promises a dying giraffe he will take care of her daughter. When the animal is taken by a Bedouin merchant named Hassan and is renamed Zarafa, Maki follows the duo. Hassan eventually admits Maki into his group, and the trio arrive at a besieged Alexandria. There, the trio are sent on a mission by the Egyptian sultan to deliver Zarafa as a gift to the French king, who will hopefully be convinced to send forces to the Egyptians. Along the way, they encounter many obstacles: the journey is dangerous, and an evil slave trader is on their trail.

If the story of Zarafa were placed in the hands of lesser creators, the final product would have doubtless been forgettable. It is a story forged of tropes that have appeared in children's movies over and over again: a wonderfully feisty but otherwise flat hero; quirky secondary characters; an irredeemably greedy villain; mean and racist royalty. But if whittle down all movies to general plot, they become almost indistinguishable; surely, good movies have something to set them apart. 

NOTES:

- great enjoyment of travelling - connections, girraffe on pyramid, all part of the beauty of the world; from europe to africa; beseiged alexandria (kaleidescope of travel)
- level of realism? based on true events but fantastical, impossible; but never cartoonishly so
- humorous characters but never cartoonish


*Rating*: 3 out of 4 stars.