Moving documentary follows the unusual story of man and elephant (photo courtesy of David Balding)
ONE LUCKY ELEPHANT (Lisa Leeman, 2010)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
June 8-21
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org
www.oneluckyelephant.com
One Lucky Elephant follows the heartwarming — and heartbreaking — story of a very different kind of relationship, one that audiences will find hard to forget. In 1984, when she was two years old, Flora the elephant was orphaned when poachers killed her family in Zimbabwe. She was shipped off to America, where she was soon purchased by Ivor David Balding, who quickly made her the centerpiece of his Circus Flora. In May 2000, filmmakers Lisa Leeman and Cristina Colissimo were invited to document Flora’s farewell performance, as she was ready to retire from something she had seemingly loved doing for so many years. Balding and Flora are shown to be like doting father and precocious daughter; as he talks about what is next for Flora, she playfully harasses him. But what’s next for Flora turns out to be the focus of the the film, as Balding’s sincere attempts to return Flora to the African wild, or even to a zoo or sanctuary, are met with rising challenges, often exacerbated by her unwillingness to be apart from him. “It’s hard to think that maybe I’d made a mistake to take this elephant’s life and merge it with mine,” he says at one point. Leeman ended up spending ten years following what she calls “a father-daughter interspecies story,” as Balding meets with such experts as Ron Magill of the Miami Metrozoo, Willie Theison of the Pittsburgh Zoo, and Carol Buckley of the Elephant Sanctuary in his never-ending quest to do right by Flora, whose long-term relationships with people have complicated the situation. But as much as the film is about this unique pair of individuals, it also deals with such issues as natural habitat, safe animal environments, and humanity’s responsibility to the animal kingdom. You might never look at a zoo — and certainly an elephant — in the same way again. One Lucky Elephant opens tonight at Film Forum for a two-week run, with director Leeman and cowriter, producer, and cinematographer Colissimo on hand at the 6:30 screenings on June 8, 10 & 11 to discuss the film; on June 8 they will be joined by Dr. Iain Douglas-Hamilton of Save the Elephants and and Joshua Ginsberg of the Wildlife Conservation Society.