Savages (dir. Claude Barras)
Certificate: PG
Running Time: 87 mins
UK Distributor: MetFilm Distribution
UK Release Date: 1 August 2025
WHO’S IN SAVAGES?
Babette De Coster, Martin Verset, Laetitia Dosch, Benoît Poelvoorde, Pierre-Isaïe Duc, Michel Vuillermoz, Gaël Faye, Sailyvia Paysan, Anna-Marie Missoul
WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?
Claude Barras (director, writer, editor), Catherine Paillé (writer), Nicolas Burlet (producer), Charles de Ville and Nelly Tungang (composers), Simon Filliot (cinematographer), Anne-Laure Guégan and Valène Leroy (editors)
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
In Borneo, a young girl and a baby orangutan set out on a journey through the rainforest…
WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON SAVAGES?
Upon first glance, an animated film like Savages seems like it’s emerged from that period of the 90s when the so-called “green wave” of pro-environment media was in full effect. It was a time when families were being bombarded from every corner with well-intentioned but overly preachy messages about cleaning up the planet, whether it was in cartoon shows like Captain Planet and the Planeteers and The Animals of Farthing Wood, or more prominently in animated films such as FernGully: The Last Rainforest, Princess Mononoke and Once Upon a Forest, among many others.
But while Savages, from director and co-writer Claude Barras of My Life as a Courgette fame, doesn’t exactly reinvent the naturally resourced wheel, it does at least offer some interesting cultural conflict that makes it an eye-opening, if hardly groundbreaking, family outing.
The stop-motion animated film takes place on the outskirts of the Borneo rainforests, which are being bulldozed by logging companies with powerful influence, and you know they’re evil right away for one of the very first acts we see them commit is the murder of a wild orangutan. Its infant child is swiftly taken in by Kéria (voiced by Babette De Coster), the young daughter of Mutang (Benoît Poelvoorde) who works for the logging company, and takes an instant shine to the baby, whom she names Oshi. Kéria herself is removed from her forest roots, for her late mother belonged to an indigenous group called the Penan, but having been raised in a more traditional environment, she has very little interest in exploring her heritage. That is, until she is saddled with her younger Penan cousin Selaï (Martin Verset) when he is brought to Kéria’s village for an education, and after following both Selaï and Oshi into the rainforest, she finally begins to connect with her heritage and join the fight against those wishing to destroy their home.
It’s certainly a plot that’s been used in everything from Dances with Wolves to Avatar – a civilised person connects with a race once thought to be dangerous, and ends up protecting them against the very people who sent them there – but Barras and co-writer Catherine Paillé come at it with a fresh enough angle that also explores the loss, and gradual regaining, of one’s cultural identity. When we first meet Kéria, she’s no different to your average pre-teen girl; glued to her phone, hanging out with friends, and always in a huff about something. Once the baby orangutan comes into the picture, you can start to see the sparks that will eventually form a full embrace of her family roots, as Barras and Paillé carefully connect their shared sense of misplacement with neither fitting entirely into civilisation, and only by surrounding themselves (inadvertently, in Kéria’s case) with more natural environments do they finally feel a sense of belonging. It’s a wise and mature look at what it is to connect with an inherited culture, one that younger viewers with similar ancestry may well look up to as an example to convey their own curiosity about where they came from.
Barras, as he did with My Life as a Courgette, deploys a distinct handcrafted animation style that fits neatly with the gentle and compassionate narrative, one that is stunning in both its design and execution. Like with regular stop-motion, you can practically feel the literal thumbprints placed all over these characters and sets as Barras takes you through, over and under various areas that are treated with great care and precision by the filmmaker, including a cliff face that has been intricately carved into an actual face, and even shots of the torn-down trees that almost make it look like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie. At times, the director even flirts with mysticism, particularly in shots captured by cinematographer Simon Filliot that hint at a more spiritual existence within this forest, and while it doesn’t fully embrace that aspect it does make this natural environment sparkle in ways that stretch beyond the pretty animation.
There is plenty of charm and good-naturedness for families to enjoy, especially with the antics of little Oshi that will certainly win over younger viewers, but when it comes to bearing its central pro-environmental message, Savages doesn’t always opt for the subtlest of deliveries. It’s the kind of film that stops everything in its tracks to have a deep and meaningful conversation about the negative long-term effects of deforestation, as though it were lecturing the audience directly, and also has a villain that would be too much even for an average Captain Planet episode. The overall resolution of the film, without spoilers, is also fairly rushed with certain conflicts being ended within seconds of them starting, while there’s a plot point involving footage captured on a character’s phone that stretches plausibility, which in a world where not many people give as much of a stuff about the environment as they probably should seems particularly short-sighted, no matter how well-intentioned it may be.
But overall, Savages is perfectly serviceable family entertainment that takes time to explore some genuinely intriguing angles to a familiar plot, which heavy-handedness aside is delivered with enough dramatic weight to feel a bit more grounded and relatable than the likes of FernGully before it. Who knows, it may well inspire someone to actually take action against the likes of deforestation and other man-made environmental disasters, which means that the film will have done its job beyond just providing a mere cinematic escape.
SO, TO SUM UP…
Savages is a gorgeously animated take on a familiar premise that explores the nature of cultural identity within a mature, if somewhat heavy-handed, pro-environmental message which young viewers may relate strongly to.
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