This creaky "docu-drama" is pretty difficult to enjoy from a 21st Century vantage point.
It chronicles the efforts of one family in what in 1927 was still Siam to survive in the wilds of the jungle. But the film demonizes the natural world, and particularly the animals who live in it, to the point that the family seems to be winning some sort of moral victory every time they kill a tiger or tame an elephant. It also doesn't help that most of the film is obviously staged, undermining the seriousness of this family's struggle with the jungle. All these years later, with mankind raping and exploiting the natural world out of existence, it's nearly impossible not to find this film distasteful.
And I really could have done without the twee storyline (and especially the "comic relief" title cards) involving the family's pet monkey.
"Chang" was nominated in the one-time only category of Unique and Artistic Picture at the very first Academy Awards, but it lost, thank God, to F.W. Murnau's exquisite "Sunrise." That the two films were even nominated in the same category is hard to believe.
Grade: C
It chronicles the efforts of one family in what in 1927 was still Siam to survive in the wilds of the jungle. But the film demonizes the natural world, and particularly the animals who live in it, to the point that the family seems to be winning some sort of moral victory every time they kill a tiger or tame an elephant. It also doesn't help that most of the film is obviously staged, undermining the seriousness of this family's struggle with the jungle. All these years later, with mankind raping and exploiting the natural world out of existence, it's nearly impossible not to find this film distasteful.
And I really could have done without the twee storyline (and especially the "comic relief" title cards) involving the family's pet monkey.
"Chang" was nominated in the one-time only category of Unique and Artistic Picture at the very first Academy Awards, but it lost, thank God, to F.W. Murnau's exquisite "Sunrise." That the two films were even nominated in the same category is hard to believe.
Grade: C