The new film by Claude Barras, director of My Life as a Zucchini, is an exhilarating adventure set in the claymation jungle, which premiered at the 77th Cannes Film Festival.
Eleven-year-old Kéria lives with her father on the island of Borneo, surrounded by tropical forests and palm oil plantations. Kéria is a typical teenager—she goes to school and hardly pays attention to what’s going on in Kéria jungle. That changes when she finds a baby orangutan named Oshi and meets her cousin Selaï. Like Kéria’s late mother, Selaï belongs to the indigenous Penan people, who live in the forest. But their home is under threat from rampant deforestation. Together, Kéria, Selaï, and Oshi embark on an extraordinary journey during which the young girl not only connects with the jungle’s animals and her forest-dwelling family, but also fights to protect their shared home.
Director Claude Barras blends adventure, urgent global issues, and touching characters—dolls with oversized heads and melancholic eyes—using the same approach that earned My Life as a Zucchini widespread acclaim in 2016. In Savages, however, the cast expands to include animals whose unconventional charisma challenges traditional notions of cuteness—Barras’s way of broadening our sense of what is appealing. The protagonist is no longer a child but a teenager, which sharpens the conflicts and infuses the film with a rebellious spirit. Over the course of the story, Kéria becomes politically aware and embraces activism—her real-world counterparts might be Malala Yousafzai and Greta Thunberg.
The film will be screened in French with Russian subtitles.
Savages
Dir. Claude Barras
Switzerland, France, Belgium, 87 min.
12+