A Savage Thriller: Nature Television as Shakespearean Drama ‘Savage Kingdom,’ on Nat Geo WILD, is darkly enthralling By John Anderson
http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-savage-thriller-nature-television-as-shakespearean-drama-1480025402
If one of the hairy cast members of “Savage Kingdom” stood up and recited the St. Crispin’s Day speech from “Henry V,” yes, you’d be surprised. But it wouldn’t be inappropriate at all: What Nat Geo is presenting in its ambitious three-part series is nature television as Shakespearean drama, with all the devices: wars of succession, military strategies, sexual politics, conspiracy, assassination, infanticide and exile. Whether the characters consider it history, comedy or tragedy, of course, depends on whether they’re eating, or being eaten.
Narrated by Charles Dance, “Savage Kingdom” opens with “Clash of Queens,” the principal monarch being Matsumi, a lioness leading the pride that dominates life, and death, at Botswana’s Great Marsh. During the production’s yearlong shoot, the marsh suffered through one of its periodic, debilitating droughts and a scarcity of food is just one of the constant threats to Matsumi’s reign—others being rival lions, pregnancies and, to a certain degree, her mate, Sekekama. He’s no benevolent despot: To deny him, Matsumi knows, is to face death (it’s always rough sex at the marsh). Likewise, to challenge his rule, or sexual supremacy: One upstart, ravaged for his audacity by Sekekama, suffers a prolonged and pitiable demise, unable, finally, even to drink water. “Goodnight, sweet prince,” says Mr. Dance. And no, we kid you not.
Savage Kingdom
9 p.m. Fridays, Nat Geo WILD
If Matsumi and her pride are the peers of the realm, the hyenas are its Nazi skinheads. “Hyenas infect the kingdom like a plague,” says Mr. Dance. “Where there is one there will soon be many.” They are pure villainy, and while not the most individually effective of the murderous marsh dwellers, they never attack except en masse and are easily the scariest of a furry lot. (Other species featured in the show include elephants, wild dogs, hippos, warthogs and wildebeest.)Over the years, nature TV has gotten a reputation for being, essentially, about animals eating other animals. There’s no shortage of that here. At the same time, the intimacy with which “Savage Kingdom” was filmed—one can count the flies on Matsumi’s face—and the breathtaking camera work of Brad Bestelink and his Natural History Film Unit, Botswana, add visual luster to what is often stirring and occasionally heartbreaking drama. Children are lost, homes invaded, vicious punishments inflicted. There’s a degree of anthropomorphism at work here, but the intention is a greater appreciation of the animal kingdom, the struggles its members endure and the capricious African environment, which makes the marsh a lush smorgasbord one minute, a fetid swamp the next: One sequence, late in episode one, features the leopard Saba (the favorite player here, for what it’s worth) fishing in the gooey bed of an evaporated river, dragging hefty sharptooth catfish out of the mud for the delectation of her offspring. CONTINUE AT SITE
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