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Thursday, May 21, 2015

Movie Review: Zarafa


Summary: An escaped Sudanese slave boy befriends a baby giraffe and accompanies it on a perilous journey to the shores of France.

Thoughts: This is an engaging and adorable French film based on the story of the  Giraffe given to Charles X of France by Muhammad Ali of Egypt. Much is fictionalized, in fact I'm pretty sure most of the story is, so I wouldn't suggest using it as a history lesson, but it makes a great watch with the kids...so long as they don't mind subtitles. GKIDS is the company that is working on getting the film dubbed and then licensing it for home video release but Zarafa's been sitting still for awhile now and we're not sure when exactly it will be released. If you're willing to do some extensive searching you can find the French version online. 

 Content: The issue of slavery is brought up in here in a mostly child friendly way but we do see children in chains or being hit. Also, because of the children's home land, they are seen shirtless for most of the film even though one of them is a girl. This is not really an issue though. Aside from that there's some violence but not much more than you'd see in a Disney film.