Synopsis
Inspired by the true story of the first giraffe to visit France, Zarafa is a sumptuously animated and stirring adventure, and a throwback to a bygone era of hand-drawn animation and epic storytelling set among sweeping CinemaScope vistas of parched desert, wind-swept mountains and open skies. Under the cover of darkness a small boy, Maki, loosens the shackles that bind him and escapes into the desert night. Pursued by slavers across the moon-lit savannah, Maki meets Zarafa, a baby giraffe – and an orphan, just like him – as well as the nomad Hassan, Prince of the Desert. Hassan takes them to Alexandria for an audience with the Pasha of Egypt, who orders him to deliver the exotic animal as a gift to King Charles of France.
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Cast
- Max RenaudinMaki (voice)
- Simon AbkarianHassan (voice)
- Vernon DobtcheffLe vieux sage (voice)
- Roger DumasCharles X (voice)
- Ronit ElkabetzBouboulina (voice)
- Mohamed FellagMahmoud (voice)
- Déborah FrançoisZarafa adulte (voice)
- Thierry FrémontMoreno (voice)
- Philippe Morier-GenoudSaint-Hilaire (voice)
- Mostéfa StitiPacha
Recommendations
- 80
Village Voice
Beautifully animated and often moving. - 80
New York Magazine (Vulture)
The patient storytelling and the elegant and colorful hand-drawn animation combine to give the film a pleasing, picture-book-like quality that should appeal to kids; there’s something very old-school about the film’s aesthetic. But in some senses, it also feels like a blast of fresh air, not the least because of where, and on whom, it chooses to place its focus. - 70
The Dissolve
Everything about the way this story is rendered makes it feel much bigger than the characters and their limited travails can make it. - 70
The New York Times
Zarafa may not be the most groundbreaking feat of storytelling, but it does have a giraffe in a balloon. - 70
The Hollywood Reporter
Using a wide-ranging color palette that shifts from the warmer hues of the Sahara desert to the colder, sadder blues and grays of old-time Paris, Lie and his team provide a pared-down animation technique that recalls classic Disney, albeit with a rougher, at times abstract touch. - 70
Variety
While the gorgeous widescreen landscapes have a pencil-and-aquarelle quality, the characters themselves are literally rougher-edged, a clever reminder of the hand-drawn, sketchlike quality of traditional animation. - 40
Empire
The film veers from quasi-real to cartoonily silly and scenes either drag or whirl by too fast. - 40
Time Out London
Zarafa never pauses for breath, rattling from one hasty, perfunctory sequence to another.
