We usually associate heroes with white Americans or Europeans hit by personal tragedy, which made them plot vendetta against their enemies and opponents. The world is far wider than the cities we are used to. It comprises tribes, following different customs and traditions, landscapes unsurpassed in their beauty, wild animals living freely in wide open spaces of valleys and hills, and people struck with global problems far different than mortgage and student's loans. A tribute to Africa with its all distinguished highlights, a story of Wakanda, revenge, technological progress, and a proof that the world is in need of another kind of hero. Black Panther.
Imagine you wake up one day without your daily dose of entertainment, you have no clothes to compare with your friends, there's no fast food restaurant that you can pop in and satisfy your cravings. Imagine that you opposed the rules of civilization, the temptations of money and the change of culture. Imagine that you are a part of the tribe. Can pristine traditions and old rules survive for the sake of preserving the unspoiled paradise that has slowly been eradicated from the surface? Can you, in the 21st century, still hunt, gather and obey the elderly against your will? Or is it time to oppose and move forward, leaving the tradition behind? An amazing cinematic adventure for those you don't find the inventions of last centuries indispensable. A love story: Tanna.
Quite recently I have come across an online newspaper article about a mammoth tusk discoveries in Siberia or some other distant Russian area. As we are celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Internet, it amazes me that two spheres: the distant past and technology-packed present interchange. Around 10 000 BC, I would have probably been scribbling something on the cave wall and waited patiently for someone to visit it to gain one brave reader. As my other skills would have probably been neglected, I would have been mauled by wild animals, I would have died of hunger, or would have been eaten by my cannibal neighbors. As you can imagine, I do appreciate recent inventions.
What technology added to our lives was also making distant past as tangible and real as the present. If you want to travel to days when survival was more than paying off a mortgage and finding a job, when cats were not tamed pets but wild beasts ready to tear you apart, take a moment with 10 000 BC. When you think of it, planes, cars, computers, coffee makers and remote control didn't deprive us of the emotions of a pristine human, as fear, love, passion, and faith are as present as ever before.
Wild species have always fascinated us. Having no animals in the nearest proximity, we established zoos to put them on display. When land was for us of utmost importance, we pushed them out of the land and caused them to shift from endangered to extinct. Civilization made us believe that we, as people, are more privileged and it all belongs to us. Maybe, for this reason, a team of actors was shipped to a wild land, where humans are vicious and one beast's size would rather fit it in the era of dinosaurs. Hollywood made money out of the most bizarre stories. It could kidnap an enormous gorilla from the claws of the jungle. It could enslave a beast, which as a matter of fact, could fall in love with a woman. Love, land, and life are not exclusively human. Full of action and surprising romanticism: King Kong.
What are you willing to do for love? Are you ready to have your beloved one imprisoned in the worst kind of cage? Are you willing to take part in a deadly competition and risk your life for fulfilling unreasonable tradition? Are you brave enough to enter civilization which obeys not entirely understandable norms and customs? Are you devoted enough to believe in God's demanding monuments of a giant stone human-like creature? Are you fearless enough to step on the island which was kept in isolation for years until it perished somewhere in the ocean of time? Are you ready to enter Rapa Nui?
In the jungle of Kongo there was once a boy left to die in loneliness, abandoned by his parents, deprived of the chances of his birth. In the jungle of Kongo, there was once a boy who was saved by the wildest of the wild, creatures who obeyed rules few of us could comprehend. In the jungle of Kongo, there was a man who once again received the access to his lost inheritance of civilization. When one species wanted to dominate over the other, when the man tried to rule over animals for centuries, when the white man wanted to abuse the black man for decades of colonization and slavery, there was one man who connected them all. This film shows us how cruel we can be as people, how greed destroys values and equality, and how cooperation can save more than one life. Whatever race we are, whatever country we come from, we are just a piece of the puzzle of one big organism. Totally amazing, The Legend of Tarzan.
Once there was a time when tribal instincts guaranteed the survival of the fittest. Once there were no hospitals but people used the blessings of nature to recover from diseases. Once giving birth to a child was as natural as killing an animal for food. And once humans were driven by such inexplicable drives that they could cause the annihilation of the whole civilization. As far as we did look different, we did wear strange clothes and ornamented ourselves in tattoos and jewelry, and we did hold extraordinary beliefs in supernatural forces, have we really changed that much over the centuries? Or do we still store the pristine urges which just wait for the right time to be released? Apocalypto.






