(a post inspired by the movie Kraven, The Hunter1 i.e. spoiler alert – if you want an unbiased view of the movie, don’t read this until after you see it.)
This isn’t really a movie review, but I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the story in Kraven. I’d seen ratings before watching, so wasn’t expecting awesomeness. With Russel Crowe as a main character, and the other choice at the time in my fav. genre, Gladiator 2, was out, because Russel Crowe was perfect in the original Gladiator.
In Kraven, there is good depth of character. Russel Crowe’s character is a classic 20th Century bastard, but still has some admirable values. Cliches were ignored, as the male and female lead empower each other without getting romantically entangled. The hero is complex, a good jumble of human emotion, unique values and superpowers. There are plot twists, genuinely human (although super-powered) mini-villains, and lots of things blow up (i.e. adventure and battles). Good scenery too. Overall, I’d multiply the average review by 1.7 to get to five stars. Suspension of disbelief in reality is necessary, but the movie didn’t pretend anything different from the beginning.
On top of the good movie stuff, there are excellent ethical questions raised. The story is about being a hunter, questioning the human relationship with animals. Hunting is a natural activity, used by many animals for survival. At one point in history, all humans survived by hunting, to obtain food, clothing and fuel. Some still have the knowledge to do so. From the hunter/gatherer lifestyle, humans moved to agriculture, which maintained the dependance on animals for food and other products, but shifted the risk of throwing a spear at something that would eat you to the risk of disease among the herd.
Oddly, there are current societies, with an abundance of food, that turn this previous means of survival into a form of entertainment. The film pokes at hunting as a sport, relegating it to a pursuit of an era gone by. Still, I can see admirable traits in hunters. Many animals have the advantage in confrontation with a human, even an armed one, due to brute strength and natural weapons like teeth, claws and agility. Not condoning trophy hunting, but admiring the will to take the risk and have faith in quick thinking, confronting something that might kill you. The application seems wrong, although the qualities for success can be valuable.
Speaking of inappropriate applications, poachers steal the lives of animals, outside the law and outside the natural order. They kill for high value merchandise, wastefully, not utilizing the full value of the animal. Kinda like the trophy hunters, although at least they usually make a trophy of the entire animal.
Humans have wandered far from our traditional lifestyle, where hunters would stalk and kill only as many animals as they needed to feed and clothe themselves. As hunter-gatherers, we knew taking only part of the herd ensured food for the next year. We transitioned into an agricultural lifestyle, but it was still frugal. Farm cultures raise animals to feed humans, but do not waste any part of the animal, to the point that even poop nurtures the next generation of crops in the field to feed the animals.
Despite popular cliches, humans are not at the top of the food chain. There are plenty of large predictors, bears, big cats, sharks, and more, that kill people ever year. Sometimes for food, or self-defence. One on one, we are helpless against the strength and prowess of many creatures. It’s only with our clever tools that we annihilate other species en masse. And we have, by changing physical environments, over-hunting/harvesting or putting toxic stuff into the air/water/ground. We might feel dominant because we domesticate species, but this continues to be questioned both from the perspective of fairness to the animal and the impact on the environment to raise these animals.
In Kraven, the hero’s superhuman powers are animal powers, including tremendous strength, agility, beyond human hearing, sight and sense of smell, ability to climb vertically, jump incredible distances, run as fast as cars, and more. Each trait does come from a real animal. Superhuman Kraven endures trauma, recovering quickly from injury – is this an animal trait? Animals have different pain thresholds than humans, perhaps because we go to the doctor in a protected environment, rather than become a vulnerable, injured animals that might be a meal for the next carnivore that happens along. Do animals heal faster than humans? Not sure but some have more advanced recuperation abilities, like lizards that will grow a new tail if theirs is cut off.
The hero has the best of all worlds, as far as physical attributes go. His choice of life’s work, is inspired by the wrongs that humans do animals in our modern world. But he kills humans. This is a clear application of principle-based ethics, the principle being that such eliminating evil justifies taking the life of a person. Or perhaps it is a life (the human poacher) for many lives (animals killed for fun or blackmarket parts).
Humans use animals for food, medicinal purposes, and entertainment. Occasionally, we kill to protect ourselves. We admire animal traits, as there are individual species better at anything (strength, speed, sensing, etc) than we are, but no species better at controlling and changing wide areas of the earth for their convenience. We think we are dominant but actually weak to defend ourselves single-handed.
So, what is right in the relationship between humans and other species? The biologist in me accepts that humans are omnivores, so eating meat is natural, although not essential for survival. Historically, we’ve hunted, then farmed to obtain meat. These seem appropriate, depending on how the farming is done. Killing animals for sport or to sell parts on the black or grey markets for ill-defined health benefits seems wrong.
I’m drawn to the beliefs of the Indigenous people in Canada. They consider that any animal killed is a great gift to the hunter. People should show respect and be honoured that the animal has laid down its life to provide for the humans. Thus, the humans should take only the animals they need, and make the most use of the life sacrificed, i.e. eat the meat, use the skin and all other parts.
This is what I learned from Kraven: although people collectively may overpower animals, we have no right to, and cannot do so individually without superpowers. We need to appreciate our place in nature.
1 After spending a few minutes trying to decipher the legends (Marvel created) around Kraven, I see the movie plot diverged significantly, so I’ll stick to discussing what I saw in the 2024 movie, which inspired these ramblings about the relationship between humans and animals.