From time to time, a film, present, or documentary comes round and utterly catches you abruptly. That not too long ago occurred to me after I watched the 2025 Netflix authentic movie, Pangolin: Kulu’s Journey, a brand new documentary a few conservationist saving a younger pangolin (these scale-covered anteater-looking animals) from poachers after which bringing it again to well being. I feel I’m ceaselessly modified after watching it.
After I first heard concerning the documentary from Pippa Ehlirch, the director greatest recognized for the Oscar-winning movie My Octopus Instructor, I believed this may be a regular nature documentary about an endangered animal. Nonetheless, I might quickly uncover that this was a deeply private and extremely emotional story. Right here’s the way it all went down and why it is best to give this empowering doc a watch along with your Netflix subscription.
I Stored Listening to About Pangolin: Kulu’s Journey, And Thought It Was Simply A Customary Nature Doc
This isn’t me placing down nature documentaries, as I’m a large fan of David Attenborough packages and all these beautiful Disney+ nature docs which have come out through the years. Nonetheless, after I first heard about Pangolin: Kulu’s Journey, I believed this was going to be one thing extra within the vein of your commonplace story a few pangolin occurring some form of journey in its native Africa. You understand those, the place the administrators add some semi-fictional narrative to go together with footage of an animal in harmful conditions?
However as a substitute, this extremely highly effective and emotional documentary is concerning the relationship shared by South African conservation volunteer Gareth Thomas and the bond he shaped with Kulu, beforehand named Gijima, after the three-month-old animal was rescued from poachers who took the juvenile from its mother at a really younger age. All through, the movie explores the rehabilitation efforts on the Johannesburg Wildlife Veterinary Hospital and the impression it had on each Kulu and Gareth.
Whereas It Is About Rehabilitating An Endangered Animal, It is Additionally About Fixing A Damaged Individual
What makes Pangolin: Kulu’s Journey such a riveting, highly effective, and mesmerizing documentary is that it isn’t nearly Kulu’s rehabilitation from a younger, malnourished, and stolen youngling to a self-sufficient creature able to stay by itself. As an alternative, it tells the story a few damaged individual discovering which means in life after years of bouncing around the globe aimlessly, attempting to determine issues out.
Gareth Thomas, whose private images and movies of Kulu make up a big a part of the documentary, is on a journey simply as a lot because the animal he swore to guard. Reconnecting to his roots (Thomas spent his summers in South Africa and Zimbabwe exploring the wilderness), the character photographer and volunteer discovered a brand new objective by his work with the hospital. However when he met and rescued Kulu, his life took on a complete new which means and objective.
Although I’ve by no means labored with wild animals (I wouldn’t name the 4 chickens in my yard wild, they peck at my again door for meals), I felt a robust reference to Gareth’s story and his journey to rescue, increase, defend, and finally launch Kulu again into the wild after the months-long rehabilitation was full. There have been occasions after I laughed, occasions after I cried, however I associated to Gareth and his quest from begin to end of this magical 90-minute nature documentary.
The connection between Gareth and Kulu is much less like “man and animal” and extra like “father and son,” because the conservationist learns from the three-month-old child pangolin. Watching him attempting to determine issues out within the early a part of the doc made me suppose again to after I first turned a father practically a decade in the past. Not understanding precisely how in over your head you might be till you’re within the thick of it for the primary time is a sense I’ll always remember, and watching this documentary took me again.
The confusion, the frustration, the emotion (each joyful and unhappy), and all these struggles he confronted all through his journey with Kulu made for a profound profile on a person attempting to boost, defend, and finally say goodbye to one thing he loves dearly. And I felt that.
The Documentary’s Bittersweet Ending Is One That’ll Stick With Me For A Lengthy Time
A couple of minutes in, I had a sense how the documentary would finish: Kulu being launched into the wild and Gareth coming to phrases with it. My hunch was right and the story does wrap up with the 2 going their separate methods, however the bittersweet ending did hit me proper within the feels.
All through the documentary, Gareth persistently works in direction of Kulu being launched into the wild. Slowly however absolutely, he provides the pangolin more room, extra freedom, and extra belief as he continues the rewilding course of. All of it results in this emotional second a couple of minutes earlier than the story’s finish the place he says, “there’s obtained to be a degree the place you let go” as his eyes properly up with tears. One 12 months and 7 months after their paths first crossed, Gareth says goodbye to his good friend Kulu because the creature goes into the wild.
The Finest Factor I Can Evaluate This To Is Final Minutes With Oden
After I was watching Pangolin: Kulu’s Journey, particularly close to the top, I couldn’t cease fascinated with Eliot Rausch’s Final Minutes with Oden, a 2009 short-form documentary a few man coming to phrases with having his canine put to sleep after a long-fought battle with most cancers. Although these two documentaries have two utterly totally different endings, each sort out the identical matter: how animals make us higher people.
If you happen to haven’t watched Final Minutes with Oden, I can not suggest it sufficient. However I do have so as to add that it is likely one of the most heartbreaking brief movies you’ll ever watch and not possible to look at with out crying (severely, I’m getting emotional writing about it now). Whereas watching each, I couldn’t cease fascinated with my very own bond with animals – my canines, with my cats, with my chickens – in addition to my relationships with my household and buddies. It’s wonderful how fantastically crafted and earnest documentaries can have this impression.
That is all an extremely great distance of claiming that Pangolin: Kulu’s Journey is a must-watch for anybody who loves nature documentaries with a complete lot of coronary heart. And, contemplating director Pippa Ehlirch has knocked it out of the park with this and My Octopus Instructor, I can’t wait to see what she does subsequent.