Animals Are Beautiful People

General description

This South African film tells about life in these areas in a humorous way. It was directed and written by Jamie Uys, who is most famous for his later film The Gods Must Be Crazy.

The film begins in the Namib desert, with the narrator saying: "You'd think nobody could make a living here." But the film proves the opposite and shows the lives of the animals that live there. The narrator concludes: "But to the Oryx and the little creatures of the Namib, this waterless, hostile desert is paradise."

The second third of the film shows the rich life in the Okavango River and Okavango Delta (see Marula, below), and the last third of the film focuses on life in the Kalahari desert.

Criticisms

One scene depicts baboons, elephants, giraffes, warthogs and other animals eating rotten, fermented fruit of the Marula tree. The intoxicated animals then stagger around to comic effect. In the morning, we see one baboon wake up, disheveled, next to a warthog, and quietly exit the burrow, as not to wake her. Some experts have claimed that some scenes were likely staged; elephants would be too large, for example, and drink too much water (diluting the alcohol) to get intoxicated.

Classical music

The film uses classical music and especially well-known pieces to support a scene. A few examples:

Featured species

This incomplete list does include almost all mentioned species.