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Aug 03, 2015 By Zach Hollwedel Web Exclusive

The directing team of Rémi Bezançon and Jean-Christophe Lie deliver a touching and globe-spanning story in their new hand-drawn animated feature film. Inspired by (though greatly embellishing) true events, Zarafa tells the mid-19^th Century tale of the first giraffe ever brought to France.

Life is looking grim for Maki, a young North African boy whose village has been burned and ravaged by the French slave traders who have just captured him. Ever stubborn, Maki slips his chains, flees, and soon finds himself “adopted” by a giraffe and her young calf, Zarafa. When Maki’s captors catch up to him and murder Zarafa’s mother, the boy makes a pledge to protect the young giraffe. His promise is immediately complicated, however, when the duo is rescued by Hassan, an Arabic trader charged with capturing a giraffe to send to France. What follows is a magical adventure that highlights Maki’s unrelenting determination to remain by Zarafa’s side, despite Hassan’s commitment to deliver the animal to the king of France.

Zarafa is a return to animation in its most glorious form—beautiful, inspired, often laugh out loud, and most of all touching. Maki’s bond with Zarafa is as deep and heartfelt as any human-animal relationship depicted in film before. Supporting characters such as Hassan and co-collaborator Malaterre (not to mention a gang of pirates Maki briefly takes up with) are also fully realized, immensely human characters brought to life by Bezançon and Lie’s unwillingness to subjugate animated characters to two-dimensionality. And therein lies the heart of the only true criticism of Zarafa—perhaps more conundrum than complaint. At times, the film is tonally quite dark, more so than audiences (U.S. viewers in particular) might find appropriate for their children. When we first meet Maki, he and another young child are in chains, watching in horror as the French traders beat older captives. Maki must later confront deaths (mainly those of animal companions, but plural expirations nonetheless), and at one point, Hassan dissolves into alcoholism. That said, the film then balances these more mature elements with family friendly humor and heart, including a defecating hippopotamus (a running gag that pays off hilariously). For parents—and non-parents—longing for the days of hand-drawn animated films (and those willing to expose their children to the occasionally more adult theme), Zarafa is a treasure waiting to be watched.

www.gkidsfilms.com/zarafa

Author rating: 7.5/10