After Mia and the White Lion, what is The Wolf and the Lion, by Gilles de Maistre, worth? (critical)

This new family film dedicated to wildlife is coming to free-to-air television.

In 2018, Gilles de Maistre amazed the public with his film Mia and the white lion, particularly for its scenes where the wild animal played with the young heroine. Sequences filmed “in truth”, after several months of cohabitation between the teenage actress and the lion cub becoming an adult. This extraordinary filming, supervised by the zoologist Kevin “the man who whispered in the ears of lions” Richardson, gave the filmmaker the desire to film animals in nature again. In the fall of 2021, it was released like this The Wolf and the Lion, which will be revealed unencrypted this Friday evening on M6. Here is the review of First.

Mia and the White Lion: The scenes where Mia plays with the adult feline are breathtaking (review)

Three years after the box office Mia and the lionGilles de Maistre reconnects with this idea of ​​a family show celebrating wild animals with their freedom threatened by man and this idea (which we also find in his documentary Tomorrow is ours) that salvation will come from the younger generation. Its heroine is thus 20 years old. And when she comes to settle in her childhood home after the death of her grandfather, she finds herself secretly raising a cub and a lion cub who grow up like brothers before the secret is revealed and the duo separates. by force. To speak of a recipe would be an insult to the director with his sincere approach. But his story is drowned too much in good feelings through televised twists and turns. De Maistre would have benefited from cutting the often insipid exchanges between humans, young and old, to favor his strong point: the moments when we just follow this wolf and this lion wandering.

Gilles de Maistre: “Mia and the White Lion has been purchased all over the world… except in South Africa”