Chang: A Drama in the Wilderness

1927 nature documentary

Rating: 17/20 (Jen: 13/20)

Plot: A couple guys who would later go on to make a little movie called King Kong film jungle inhabitants (Kru and his family) in Siam. Their struggle for survival is threatened by leopards, tigers, and thousands of elephants. Luckily, mankind is smart and therefore always comes out on top in conflicts with nature.

Chang has a lot in common with Nanook. They're both adventure/survival documentaries taking place in lands the audiences would have no chance of visiting. They're both anthropological studies. They both contain some stunning footage of what man has to do in order to survive in the wild. However, there are some key differences. For one, Chang is made by actual filmmakers, so the shots, especially of the animals, are a lot better. There's really some excellent footage of jungle life in this, some which looks like it might have even been dangerous to capture. There are also more characters in Chang and, from the middle point on, more of a story. The way we see the animals is also completely different. In Nanook, the animals are nothing more than potential food. When the animals are on the screen, the focus is still on the human characters and what they're doing. In Chang, the animals are shown being animals, and it's amazing how some of them (monkeys mostly) even have some personality. I also think Chang is more entertaining than Nanook. Not a moment in this one drags and the scenes in which jungle folk tackle every day tasks don't get boring because not every single minute of those every day tasks are shown. I especially liked watching them construct booby traps. This probably can't be considered a true documentary because a large percentage of the scenes were obviously staged. It's almost like hours and hours of footage was shot and then reassembled as a story. But it's very well done and definitely worth seeing as both an early documentary and a prelude to King Kong.

Jen laughed uproariously several times while watching this and seemed especially entertained by a monkey. She also rooted for the elephants during the climactic elephant stampede scene. She didn't seem to like this very much but told me she had to bump it up a few points because it was really good for the 1950s. I'm not sure, but she might have been drunk again.