Born Free

Born Free, the 1966 film adaptation of Joy Adamson’s novel, is a great, heart-warming story of a couple who raise a brood of lion cubs and then set one of them, Elsa, free – back into the wild. It is a true story, of course, based on the experiences of Joy and George Adamson, when he was a game ranger in Kenya. Elsa and the Adamson’s go through a hard trial to get her accustomed to fending for herself in the wild after growing up in domesticity. It was the first time this type of release had been done. The Adamsons showed great ingenuity in how they went about it. The characters appear ludicrously stiff and formal, but this reflects the norms of the time the film was made, rather than any failing on the part of the actors. The scenes with Elsa interacting with lions in the wild are quite extraordinary and I can’t quite imagine how they were done. With great patience, I expect. Definitely a worthwhile movie and one the whole family can enjoy. Again, as with Out Of Africa, and other films that evoke Africa’s colonial past I cannot help but feel a certain sadness for an Africa now forever lost.