The Elephant in the Living Room (Michael Webber, 2009): USA

Reviewed by Jonas Pedersen Hardebrant. Viewed at Victoria Hall, at Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

The Elephant in the Living Room doesn’t really reveal just Elephants in living rooms but the main idea is quite clear. As many people don’t know there are no federal laws against having deadly animals as household pets. There aren’t even restrictions or permits that you need to have for your lion, tiger, snake, crocodile or other exotic animals, but still there are problems.

One of the men who are highly active in the constant battle of collecting, replacing and disarming of these exotic animals is Tim Harrison, an Ohio based police, nurse and firefighter. He got his first call about a lion that was sweeping around at one of the highways, as early as in 1996 and since then the number of phone calls has drastically increased.  While putting his life on stake, Harrison set out to capture escaped tigers, lions, snakes, cougars and even crocodiles that served as pets before, but that now either has escaped or been released by its owners.

In this documentary we follow Harrison on his daily routines where he is called for helping out throughout entire America. It is a emotional journey for Harrison himself as he is not only trying to save people from this animals, but trying to save the animals itself. He knows that these animals are dangerous in themselves, and that unfortunately no stories where wild animals are kept as pets’ ends happily.

The documentary feature the other side of the coin as well, we meet Zuzana Kukol and Raymond Little a couple that have their own farm with exotic animals. We also encounter Terry Brumfield a man who was highly depressive before he was given the “opportunity” to adopt two lion cubs. After the escape of the male lion, Brumfield needs to put the two fully grown into a small horsebox, to still be able to keep control of them. It is the escape that brings Harrison and Brumfield together for the first time. Two men with very conflicting beliefs and faiths, where one is doing everything to keep his precious lions, and one is doing everything to take them somewhere else.

What is quite remarkable about this movie is how director Michael Webber has succeeded with capturing both sides of this very controversial matter. We have on the one side, the hero Harrison, who sets out, no matter what, to rescue people and animals, and on the other hand we have the antihero Brumfield, who just wants to have his “kittens” by himself.

After seeing the movie it is obvious what needs to be done. There has to be legislations and permits to assure that the people who want to have exotic and dangerous animals are fit to take care of them and to keep them from harming themselves and others. But what do you do with the people who consider their little cougar their pet as much as people consider their dog a pet? How do you differentiate to someone that have had a lion for years that they now need to give it away? That is the thing that is easier said than done.