Lions - Deluxe Box Set (..., Lord of the Lions)
I received the second part of the order from two collections of films about lions. The parcel arrived a week after the previous one, although the tracking section on the site itself said it had shipped a day earlier. It came a day before the stated date, and that's good.
This is also a collection of 4 films, but here it's a set of DVD boxes, each with a film, and all of it in a single case whose front opens with a velcro fastener and has the film descriptions printed on it. The packaging is nicely done, but the discs and boxes themselves are not so great - the pictures on the covers and discs are taken from the public domain and have nothing to do with the films, as the Lord of the Lions cover below confirms.
Funny thing, I found this collection through Amazon.com's recommendations, since George Adamson was listed in the leading role, the collection cost $30 and it also included three films that have long been available with Russian voice-over on torrents; I decided to search the internet for the film Lord of the Lions itself and found it in this very same collection for $20 on... Amazon.com. I don't know how it happened that the same product in the same store was sold at such different prices. Most likely it's because it was in different departments and the title and description were entered differently. I ordered the last twenty-dollar collection, now it's out of stock and they've already changed the price to $30 -$3 discount, that is, now $27, while the one that's easier to find still costs $30.
The collection includes the following films: Lions and Hyenas: A Balance of Power, Lions of Etosha, Lions of Gir, Lord of the Lions
For the most part, the film shows interviews and the daily life of George Adamson in the summer of 1989, including repeated footage of the twelve-year-old lead lioness Growe and three small lion cubs left without a mother and given into George's care; their names aren't mentioned, but it's clear anyway that these are the last of the free lions: Batian, Furaha and Rafiki.
In addition, it covers George's youth, his life before meeting Joy and after. It tells the story of Elsa and shows unique footage from the family archive. Interestingly, there's color video from the late '50s of Adamson, Elsa and her cubs. I didn't think they shot home video on color film back then.
Toward the end of the film, the problem of the Somali bandits - the shifta, who killed three game wardens at that time and were planning to attack Kampi ya Simba - comes to the fore. Somali herders illegally entered the reserve to graze cattle and set fire to trees. While the film crew is at the camp, a minister flies in to visit, complaining about the trouble with the bandits and checking on the cubs that had been brought to George with his help.
The film has neither Tony Fitzjohn nor Gareth Patterson, which confirms the time the film was shot and that soon after this George Adamson was killed by a shifta.
All in all, an interesting film with unique material, though in places hard to understand because there's no translation or English subtitles. But even this is enough, it gives food for thought, it made me want to reread "To Walk With Lions" by Gareth Patterson; the beginning of the book describes events from the same time and in the same place, only over a longer span of time. You could say they complement each other.
By the way, I just noticed that Gareth Patterson's site has been updated, there's a link to his blog, a new book, and it says his new photos are on Flickr, I'll need to look through all of this in more detail.
It's also interesting that during the interview you can see that the wall behind George is covered with photographs of the lion Christian and stills from the video of his reunion with Ace and John.