Escape from Extinction (2023) Film Review
When it comes to social justice films, documentaries are the leaders of the race. Maybe we could say they’re easier to approach from a storytelling perspective, but like with all films, the word “easy” shouldn’t be used. Like any other endeavor of this kind, they’re extremely hard films to make because of funding, distribution deals, etc. Unfortunately, it’s something often forgotten by viewers who fail to recognize the value of each filmmaking venture.
With documentary Escape from Extinction, director Matthew R. Brady faces those issues and more. The director’s approach to the documentary format isn’t exactly innovative, and at some point feels a bit amateurish. But I can’t help but applaud what’s obviously brave. His humbleness is visible and quite recognizable because Escape from Extinction is pretty much unlike the film Brady thought of at first. What started as an exposé about zoos and the people’s mistaken views about their existence, ended up being a clever rebuilding of that same idea. Only this time, Brady bluntly changed his mind about what he was exposing.
The problem isn’t the existence of zoological institutions, like so many believe. Brady goes very deep into the mechanism of the zoo concept and instead makes a film about their importance in preservation. Whatever marketing they use simply isn’t enough because of how the world sees them today. As modern institutions of slavery, animal exhibition, and entertainment venues. And the film doesn’t exactly deny that some of them still play in that field. But it also uncovers the reality of prominent organizations that are mistakenly seen like the product they were before.
Not to name names. The film does enough of that. But Escape from Extinction uses true facts to engage the viewer into objectively observing where the problem lies. It’s easy to stand outside a zoo, form a picket line, and protest against them. It’s easy to tweet or write articles about that. And it’s easy to be a celebrity and connect with millions of fans. What appears to anything but easy is real research and perhaps changing a point of view because then it would invalidate everything they stood for. Imagine having promoted the release of Keiko into the wild, after the whale was raised in captivity and it starred in a huge commercial success like Free Willy. Now imagine having to accept that perhaps it wasn’t such a great idea because of scientific facts.
Yes, it sounds controversial, but the film does a good job in describing every tidbit out there, while also observing similar events that required a broader analysis. Luckily, the film digs into this part of the story but doesn’t get stuck in the problem. Escape from Extinction is also a hopeful document that names names, and adds up some numbers that will convince you to fight the right fight, and stop dabbling in frantic outbursts led by a celebrity whose only intention is to sell a product and is probable getting paid somehow. And if at the end of the documentary, this is what you end up thinking of Brady and his documentary feature, think for one minute if a commercial for Sea World wouldn’t have had a fancier production. In my case, I prefer my documentaries to feel real and honest, even if they don’t look like a huge studio production.
