‘Pangolin: Kulu’s Journey’ review: Rousing follow-up to Oscar winner ‘My Octopus Teacher’

Dir: Pippa Ehrlich. South Africa, UK. 2025. 89mins

With their protecting of scales, lengthy tongues and the behavior of strolling on their hind legs, pangolins are cute and curious. This successful mixture makes for an enchanting selection of documentary topic, particularly as few movies have been made about them. By specializing in a single animal, as she did together with her Oscar-winning My Octopus Instructor, Pippa Ehrlich presents an intimate and gripping fight-back story that eloquently reminds us of the significance of the connection between people and the pure world.

Much more crowdpleasing than ’My Octopus Instructor’

No one is certain how lots of the endangered mammals are left within the wild. What is definite is that they’re extremely trafficked for Chinese language medication and, if rescued, rehabilitating them isn’t straightforward. Ehrlich follows child pangolin Kulu as he’s rewilded by South African volunteer Gareth Thomas – a job that’s, primarily, 24/7 for six months and much more in addition to. 

As with Ehrlich’s earlier movie, this can be a story of the connection between a human and an animal, however right here the main focus is far more animal-centric, which makes it, arguably, much more crowdpleasing than My Octopus Instructor. Premiering at Thessaloniki Worldwide Documentary Competition,  it ought to entice a large viewers when it launched by Netflix on April 21.

Pangolins have been pottering concerning the earth for about 85 million years, which makes it acceptable that Ehrlich employs a mythic factor. We hear that in lots of Southern African tales, it’s believed that pangolins set off thunder by rattling their scales. Described as being like each “unicorns” and “ghosts”, all of the contributors, although working with pangolins for years, observe that they’ve by no means simply occurred throughout one within the wild. 

The flexibility of pangolins to go quietly about their enterprise makes taking care of one difficult, as Gareth rapidly discovers. Pangolins gained’t merely eat ants and termites from a plate, they should forage for them, so the rehabilitation programme includes Gareth chaperoning Kulu within the daytime earlier than taking him inside at evening. The pair head to the Lapalala wildlife reserve in South Africa’s Limpopo province, the place Gareth, who describes himself as “a helicopter guardian”  initially has a tough time maintaining together with his scaly good friend, who instantly makes an attempt to run away. 

Actually, Kulu was initially named Kigima, which suggests “run” in Zulu; Gareth modifications it to Kulu, from the phrase for “straightforward”, within the hopes it would rub off on the animal, though he ruefully notes it doesn’t. This is among the few moments of anthropomorphisation in a movie, which is all the higher for not succumbing to the Disneyfication of the animals. 

Gareth has a tough job, in that he has to realize Kulu’s belief in order that he may help him however, on the identical time, he is aware of the aim is for the pangolin to realize sufficient weight to return to the wild. Among the many potential risks are the electrical fences used to separate wild animals from livestock and we hear how, in a single near-miss occasion, Gareth threw himself between a fence and the pangolin solely to present Kulu a shock himself. One of many documentary’s strengths is that Gareth can be certainly one of its cinematographers, so he is ready to seize close- quarters footage with out disturbing Kulu. Ehrlich additionally makes us conscious of the chance Gareth typically places himself at, whether or not it’s getting caught in burrows ensuring Kulu is protected or on the lookout for him after darkish when large cats are extra daring. 

Past the gorgeous footage of Kulu, his scales glowing in water or glowing within the magic hour mild, there may be additionally loads of appreciation of the good-looking Lapalala panorama and the opposite creatures that reside there, enhanced by Anne Nitikin’s atmospheric rating. Whereas the movie is peppered with pangolin details, we additionally meet ant specialist Dr Caswell Munyai, who talks concerning the wonderful equilibrium that exists between them and the pangolins – and who additionally teaches us termites have a trick or two up their sleeves. 

Though containing dramatic moments, it’s Gareth’s emotional connection to Kulu that’s the movie’s heartbeat. Whereas we, like Gareth, hope Kulu will quickly vanish again into the wild, Ehrlich additionally makes us conscious of the scary chance that our lack of motion may see all his sort fully vanish from the Earth.