Trophy

2/22/18. There is just no way to justify the senseless slaughter of wildlife by saying quoting the Bible and saying man has dominion over Earth. Please! Really? And, talking about crocodile tears shed by the hunter who just had to kill that one-of-a-kind lion just for a trophy. I can understand if you hunt because you need to eat, but to just shoot animals for sport is heinous. It's just blood lust. And, then another one had the audacity to justify hunting as leaving Earth a better place. Really? How does slaughtering animals for sport leave this Earth a better place? Despite my dislike for such hunters I found this documentary to be worth watching.

Greetings again from the darkness. Totally unexpected is a documentary on big game hunting that doesn't come down squarely on one side of this argument. Co-directors Christina Clusiau and Shaul Schwarz do an admirable job of laying out the facts and leaving the viewer to contemplate how these moving pieces create a blurred line between conservation and commerce.

Expect a couple of scenes that might be difficult to watch – after all, it is a documentary on hunting animals. There are plenty of facts and statistics provided, with one of the most staggering being since 1970, the world has lost 60% of its wild animals. Rhinos alone are down from 500,000 to 30,000, and we meet a rhino breeder who has devoted his life and fortune to saving the species. On the surface, his stance seems difficult to debate, but African law prevents the sale of rhino horn, which means this breeder is sitting on millions of dollars of warehoused horns, while poachers profit by picking off his animals and selling the horns on the black market. Not so clear now, is it?

Additional segments involve elephants, alligators, and other species. We visit the massive Safari Club hunting convention in Las Vegas, as well as stock auctions where breeders battle over the next generation. The safari clubs argue that much of the money big game hunters pay is distributed back into the conservation efforts of the country, though the corruption of politicians can't be ignored.

The contrast between shooters and hunters, killers and sportsmen, is noted and legitimate detailed information is provided. Focus goes to the "Big 5": hunters trying to bag each of water buffalo, leopard, elephant, lion and rhino. The process is slow and expensive, and the three affected tentacles – hunting, breeding, conservation - have evolved to facilitate the future of the species and those dependent on the industries.

Hunter's remorse is admitted, as is a connection to the animals by the otherwise stoic and businesslike breeders. When one hunter quotes the bible in saying that man shall have dominion over animals, it's a reminder that no matter one's stance on these topics, there is always an argument to be had and a defense to be made. The still unanswered question is, can the industry be run in a manner that allows the animals to survive, the villagers to benefit, and the vendors to profit? In theory, this seems doable … but reality and self-interest often destroy best intentions.

It's always neat when a documentary takes the audience's preconceptions and uses them to reveal their ignorance. The film will punish the audience for judging too quickly by deliberately omitting information and revealing some unseen truth that changes what was already shown. This film will make you feel like a hypocrite and it completely reinforces the film's message. Beyond the superficial topic of hunting, this film is ultimately a cautionary tale for what can happen if people make uninformed opinions, and it certainly has the power to move people in that direction. It's incredibly entertaining watching a sprawling web of moral ambiguities unfold, even if it gets so dense that even the filmmakers seem incapable of navigating it. The film certainly asks a lot of questions and asks them in an exceptionally articulate way, but the film can't seem to offer anything resembling a definitive answer.

Directed by Shaul Schwarz ("Aida's Secrets") and Christina Clusiau who is also the cinematographer, Trophy is at riveting but often hard to watch documentary that examines the debate between hunters, breeders, farmers, and wildlife conservationists over species preservation, ultimately allowing the viewer to draw their own conclusion. The issue of trophy hunting became a leading news story in June 2015 when Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer killed a male lion named Cecil, a popular tourist attraction, outside Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park, setting off worldwide protests. Though many argue for the banning of all trophy hunting, others contend that legal, regulated hunting can benefit conservation, support the local population, and stop the accelerating loss of species due to poaching.

The position of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is to support "legal, well-regulated sport hunting." For the hunter, killing an animal is a source of pride, a knowing that they are carrying on a tradition romanticized by Theodore Roosevelt and Ernest Hemingway. The goal for the hunter is killing as many of the "Big Five' - buffalo, elephant, leopard, lion, and rhino - as they can. The film shows, however, that there is no longer anything romantic about big game hunting. It has become a commercial enterprise where people pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for the right to kill the animal they buy at auction during yearly conventions. According to the film, the going rate for a 14-day, single elephant hunt is about $80,000.

One of the film's "good guys" is John Hume, who runs the Buffalo Dream Ranch in South Africa as a sanctuary for Rhinos. Home to 1,500 rhinos, Hume strives to breed two hundred new ones each year. Using a stun gun to tranquilize the animals and remove their horns without killing them, he claims that this action protects them from poachers who will kill them for their horns, which can bring in millions of dollars in some Asian markets. Unfortunately, however, he cannot legally sell the horns and complains bitterly about all the restrictions. Another of the film's main subjects is sheep rancher Philip Glass (no relation to the composer). For him, hunting has always been a part of his life.

He talks about his love for the animals he kills, saying that the bible tells him that man shall have dominion over the animals, a passage he claims gives him a license to kill without feeling guilty. One can only wonder at the thought process that equates loving an animal with putting a bullet through its head. Chris Moore leads a campaign against poaching in Zimbabwe, trying to protect elephants but we later find out that Moore works for hunters, earning fees that ostensibly support conservation efforts. The film maintains an "above the battle" approach but occasionally reveals its point of view. One woman says that she does not mind killing crocodiles for handbags because they are so mean.

We see a different view of the menacing animals later in the film, however, when the camera zooms in the eye of a crocodile bound for transport that says all we need to know about the importance of handbags. If we learn one thing from Trophy, however, it is that hunting is a thorny and complex issue which does not lend itself to simple solutions. Even someone whose job it is to protect the wildlife knows that there are times when he has to kill an animal to protect the local people from predators or simply because there is a need for food. His feeling, unlike the exhilaration of the hunter, however, is one of sadness and remorse. In one scene we see lions attack and kill a family's livestock, an act that prompts the family to move its last cow into their home and also puts their own lives in danger.

In spite of the moral ambiguity the film reveals, the fact is that wildlife populations in Africa are declining. Scientists believe that Africa may at one time have held as many as 20 million elephants; by 1979 only 1.3 million remained -- and a recent survey found that, in the seven years between 2007 and 2014, the numbers plummeted by at least thirty percent. Not only African elephants are threatened, but the population of rhinos and lions are steadily decreasing. The culprit is not any one group or way of life but a system that looks at animals as a commodity with a price tag, not as sentient beings whose life is sacred. In that regard, we can thank Schwarz and Clusiau for allowing us to look at the options that are available to preserving these species before they exist only in historical photos we will one day show our grandchildren.

Hands down, one of the best openings of any documentary I have ever seen! I won't spoil it for you, experience it yourself. No matter how you feel about hunting, this movie drags you in from the first second on and will not let your eyes allow to blink just once.

Before seeing that movie, I was disgusted by people, who kill animals for fun. I was asking myself why do they do it, why do people let them do it and so on. I must admit, this is only half of the story. My opinion on hunters is still the same, so this doc didn't changed my view on hunters, but on hunting, especially the "big ones" that you can find in the press so often.

This movie is not an easy one to watch, especially if you love animals, but believe me, its totally worth it! You will meet people with different views and stories and will follow their life for a good bit, trying to understand their motivations and getting a deeper look into the hunting industry. Ideally you can walk away from this movie with more knowledge and you will understand the dilemmas that this industry causes.

For me it was one of the best documentaries I have seen in a while and even if this doesn't look appealing to you from the trailer on, give the movie 10mins and you will be soaked in by the information, stories and cinematography.