Even for a studio with as offbeat of tastes as A24, there’s something that makes The Elephant Queen (2019) stand out. For starters, it is unlike any other documentary they have released by shifting focus away from media and over to nature. Even the intentions behind it seem to be greater than the average film, with its creators claiming that the goal was to empathize with nature and work towards improving a severe drought problem that ran rampant globally, but especially in Africa. As much as a nature doc was a first for the studio, it was also their first partnership with Apple TV+, starting a new phase of their existence. In a catalog of odd titles, none stand out quite like this one.
Depending on how one views it, the story begins decades ago in 1986. Scientists and documentarians Mark Deeble and Victoria Stone made a career out of creating nature films meant to emphasize the beauty and wonder of the room. Both claimed to have been inspired by the work of Alan and Joan Root, which meant that their style of filmmaking didn’t necessarily anthropomorphize animals but looked for common emotions to build archetypes on that made people care. Among their early work was Valley Beneath the Sea (1986) and Here be dragons (1990), though they have since gone on to do work for PBS and National Geographic with work on Human Planet and PBS’ ongoing series Nature. To say the least, they like to stay busy though not without taking the extra time to study and do due diligence on their subjects.
In the case of The Elephant Queen, it would be a project that took eight years to fully conceive. The original idea came in 2009 when a drought in Amboseli changed their mind about the elephant population. Seeing the matriarchs taking the initiative to lead and protect their family encouraged them to explore the harsh conditions and better understand their journey. Whereas most would assume that they just dropped into Africa and started filming, the reality was a lot more complicated. It would take 18 months to find their central stars, a 50-year-old named Athena, and even some conflict around where to film. Among their strictest guidelines was a desire to work with distinctly African elephants and not Asians, believing that their migration patterns were different. Eventually, they would settle on filming at Tsavo East National Park in Kenya and would also decide to incorporate various other animals like killifish, chameleons, bee-eaters, and dung beetles that made up the ecosystem.
While they never outright said this was a documentary about climate change, it’s a topic that’s difficult to fully ignore. The idea of a drought is itself caused by a lack of water. Deeble and Stone would also claim that it wasn’t long ago that Africa had consistent weather patterns of dry and wet periods, now claiming that the gaps between them have gone from decades apart to more frequently. There is an effort to try and convince audiences that animals and nature are worth preserving, and it’s a major reason that they worked on the project. They also wanted to present the idea that elephants were capable of empathy, sharing similar emotions to humans.
While the documentary makes it all look brisk, the process was anything but. Along with additional research, filming would take four years and require the duo to continually be acting alongside nature in hopes of finding key events to focus on. Deeble did the cinematography while they used aerial technology to record geese flying. Some of the biggest challenges that came with filming were how infrequently certain animal behaviors were done with many happening for only minutes in a given year. The most referenced involves the bullfrog mating scene, which only happens when there’s been enough rainfall. It only happened once in four years. Similarly, doing the filming on a nature reserve made them vulnerable to poachers and various other individuals. There were a handful of injuries and one death as a result of human-animal collisions. The crew also had to pack whatever supplies they needed (including food) as they otherwise wouldn’t have any resources to pull from.
As stated in the closing credits, the story doesn’t have a totally happy conclusion. While there’s excellent footage of elephants overcoming dry conditions, there’s the reality that Athena was killed by a poacher. Among other things referenced in the concluding minutes is access to a website that would allow audiences to help support the cause on The Elephant Queen’s website. While it has information on how to access the film, it also has resources for groups like Wildlife Conservation Network, Save the Elephants, and Conservation International. Audiences can learn more about elephants and do their part to make climate change much more manageable.
Among the extemporaneous details is the inclusion of a score by Alex Heffes and narration by Chiwetel Ejiofor. The film would premiere in 2018 at Toronto International Film Festival before making the rounds to various other festivals. During this time, it also screened in Kenya where Deeble and Stone claimed that it persuaded residents to be more welcoming of elephants. During this time, it would also receive distribution rights from A24 and marked the studio’s first partnership with the recently launched streaming service Apple TV+. Having worked previously with DirecTV and HBO, it would be their third major co-distributor of the films. Ironically, there became a conflict when The Elephant Queen played theatrically because it opened opposite The Lighthouse (2019), which meant that it received less attention during its theatrical run. It would begin streaming in November, leading to a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Narrator.
The Elephant Queen was another critical darling for the studio, earning a 91% on critics aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes. Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert . com lead the acclaim when noting that “A love letter to a gorgeous species that is increasingly in danger.” Carissa Pavlica shared the sentiment when noting "There are a lot of documentaries in 2019 that attempt to explain nature's place on this planet, but none of them do it as well as The Elephant Queen.” The few who disagreed included Alissa Wilkinson of Vox who suggested “The result is a nice story about elephants but not much more, making The Elephant Queen feel a bit like a squandered opportunity.” Overall, it was another good run to A24’s impressive Fall release cycle.
While thematically The Elephant Queen doesn’t fit into the studio’s bigger portfolio, there’s something to be said for their willingness to reach out and tackle other subjects. The effort to focus on nature and the various environmental challenges happening are deserving of attention and makes this another admirable addition. It has yet to be seen as of 2022 if they will ever release another offbeat documentary and branch out into non-media topics, but this would be a great sign of where things can go. Up next, things are back to normal with a film about war involving a moral dilemma and a noteworthy cast. Even if it’s not their biggest hit, it’s another chance to see the studio branch out into serious topics of a very different kind.
Up Next: The Kill Team (2019)
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