Well, aside from the special effects and the film industry, we seem to have a lot to say about such a Disney movie.
I admire Disney's efforts. In recent years, Disney has indeed been making changes. Those adaptations based on the simplest and purest stories have gradually faded out of the mainstream of Disney, and some more cosmopolitan and adult topics have gradually become Disney's focus. Likewise, for this film, the dream world of innocence seems to gradually disappear in Disney World, and the theme of growing up seems to be no longer just about bravery, freedom and responsibility, but more permeated with identity, religion, Discussions on politics, worldview, and human nature. It is precisely because of this that this step of the movie goes beyond the classic Disney setting and becomes an integral part of the current Disney movie transformation.
We can see a lot of growth metaphors in this film, the most important of which is the recognition of identity crisis, and the process of identity reconstruction and conversion. For Mowgli, the condition of being human is only his appearance, and his inner value system and life world are composed of wolves, which constitutes his first identity crisis. But on the other hand, as a wolf, it has a very human identity setting that can use tools (that is, tricks), but this goes far beyond the rules of survival for the wolf group, which constitutes the deepest Identity crisis. Ultimately, we know that he chose the jungle, and the jungle chose him. However, Disney's cunning setting makes us ignore a problem: Jungle accepts his bravery as a wolf, but ignores his "cunning" as a man, that is, his potential to use tools. He achieved victory and respect through the use of tools, but the jungle did not respect the effort. From this point of view, Mowgli's identity crisis is in fact exacerbated rather than resolved. The jungle accepts the outlier, accepting his existence as "the only". In this way, Mowgli's further destiny must be to be deified, not accepted by the jungle. This is deified not just because of his bravery, but because of the fact that he can use tools (saved the baby elephant and defeated the khan).
In fact, the orangutan told the truth: as long as you can use fire, you can control the jungle! This is Disney's most basic judgment on the entire jungle order, and it also means acceptance of the entire theory of evolution. But the jungle does not accept evolution, but the laws from the oldest religions. And, even more incredible, at this point, Disney accepted the oldest and most conservative religious laws through the torches discarded by Mowgli. Use Mowgli to highlight this contrast. Therefore, the use and abuse of fire has become the most important target. For example, the orangutan is set as the biggest villain, and in the setting of the film, the orangutan is also the most human-like group - with a strict political order, with the physical and symbolic organizational structure of "castle" .
Further, in addition to placing worldviews and religions tightly in ancient admonitions, Disney also provides a playful interpretation of basic religion and human nature. The python, which represents desire and understands human nature, was finally torn apart by the simple and honest grizzly bear; and Mowgli, who ate the forbidden fruit, did not know good and evil and was self-willed, but found "happiness" through the tearing of the snake by the bear. The whole setup seems to have turned the religious precepts of humanity upside down. In the jungle, however, the gods are real (represented by the "elephant", the devotional subject); the rules are also real (based on the preservation of the group's survival).
So, in the end, the Disney discussion was put in the middle. On the one hand, Disney hopes to inject more temporality into its films, intending to respond to the basic human, political and religious concerns of reality; on the other hand, it is precisely such concerns that Disney cannot fully display in its own fairy tale world The beauty of this world. The result of the compromise is that Disney denied the theory of evolution and basic human nature, and kept the fairy tale world above the most conservative political norms through negation, thereby ensuring the integrity of the world of calls. However, it is precisely the existence of this tension that the answer must be incomplete. Although such incompleteness can be compensated for by technology and narrative to a certain extent, it can still be regarded as a work that is not mature enough.
Based on this, we can compare with many better cartoons. "Crazy Primitives" completely satirizes conservative creeds, and constitutes courage in the use of fire and the ambition to explore the world; "The Lion King" sets the core of the problem in the search for "self", and courage means taking on one's own Responsibility to discover your true self; Zootopia completely hides "people" (even monkeys), so that the issue of identity can be placed between parallel races, without the need to consider "placed in the food chain" top" species. These films generally follow a unified world view setting, giving people a clearer cultural meaning, but Mowgli the Wolf Child has no way to present this complete world view. The film's worldview is chaotic, the values it presents are stagnant, and it is ambiguous about the issues it intends to discuss. Therefore, the completion of this film is actually very low.
View more about The Jungle Book reviews
