The White Tiger - Creatures of The Jungle
Thoughts On: The White Tiger (2021)
A low-caste driver schemes for an escape from his societal prison.
Despite its remorseless 'eat the rich' tone, I felt The White Tiger to be a crushing film: for all the obvious reasons, and yet also for the film's final reversal as well. In all, I could not escape the fact that this is far too moral of a story for it to comfortably end as it does; with the destruction of everything for a new start at it all. There is no balance, the narrative far too abruptly concluded, to satisfy the mire it drags us through. But perhaps this is its point; a tiger let loose in a chicken coop will not simply shed blood, but fill his belly. This is the way of the jungle. The White Tiger has zero pretence about the possibility of the jungle being transformed, its geopolitical affirmation of future change (the rise of the brown and yellow man) a clear rouse that instantiates further the gravity of heartlessness that it draws from the world. Genuine, but nonetheless soul-crushing, The White Tiger is perhaps the most complex and realistic Robin Hood narrative I have come across. It bears no true anti-hero, no true victims, and no true villains; it makes creatures out of its people and turns them loose into the woods to watch reality unfold with dispassion. Fascinating and deep, but certainly not too good of a time, The White Tiger leaves you wondering if there's any weight to the light of life illuminating its infinite and empty chain of consequence or karma.
