Lucy: The Stolen Lives of Elephants - A Wide-Ranging Doc on a Wide-Ranging Animal
By Chris Knight
Rating: A-
To borrow from an ancient parable, if you set loose several blind people on this well-meaning documentary, they might each come away with a different idea of what it’s about.
The title, Lucy: The Stolen Lives of Elephants, suggests we’re going on a deep dive into the life of Lucy, who was originally named Skanik and was born in 1975 in Sri Lanka.
She has lived at the Edmonton Valley Zoo since 1977 — alone for most of those years — and while animal-rights advocates continue to press for her to be moved to a sanctuary, she may now be too frail for transport.
But there’s a lot more happening in director Fern Levitt’s 90-minute doc. We visit Pinnawala, a Sri Lankan “elephant orphanage” that gets a failing grade from the film. Then there’s Brazil’s Global Sanctuary for Elephants, which the film suggests is doing well by these creatures, which can live as long as humans and need huge tracts of land in which to roam.
Somewhere in the middle are two eco-parks in Argentina that are transforming themselves from 19th-century-style zoos into 21st-century wildlife education centers, with fewer animals but more information. (Someone notes that children’s fascination with dinosaurs is proof that people don’t need a living example of an animal to be amazed by it.)
We hear of a place in Texas that makes its elephants produce art for sale; the Miami Zoo, whose communications director bravely goes on camera to admit there’s no perfect way to keep captive elephants; and Canada’s African Lion Safari, which declined to participate in the movie and is now threatening to sue its makers.
No mention of Toronto’s zoo, which I guess is old news since it divested itself of its three elephants more than 10 years ago; two survivors still live at the PAWS (Performing Animal Welfare Society) sanctuary in California. The late Bob Barker helped make that happen.
Regardless, Lucy: The Stolen Lives of Elephants covers a lot of ground at a sometimes dizzying pace. But the bottom line is clear enough; migratory animals with a potential hundred-year lifespan should not be penned.
Less certain is what to do with the ones that are already in that state. But if Lucy merely prevents any more elephants from joining the ranks of zoo captives, it will have served its subjects well.
Lucy: The Stolen Lives of Elephants. Directed by Fern Levitt. Starring pachyderms. Opens March 21 in cinemas.