Tro­phy

Cap­i­tal­ist greed is man­i­fest in all its glo­ry at the Las Vegas Hunt­ing Con­ven­tion. It’s a gath­er­ing that lives up to the hor­ror of its name as fanat­ics choose from a ​‘menu’ of wildlife and book their kill. The stark con­trast between the stats (‘since 1970 the world has lost over 60 per cent of its wild ani­mals’) and the ruth­less greed of tro­phy hunters cre­ates a furi­ous ten­sion nec­es­sary for this doc­u­men­tary to take effect.

Tro­phy cap­tures the South African savan­nah as a sub­lime killing ground in this pow­er­ful exposé. Christi­na Clu­si­au and Shaul Schwarz col­lab­o­rate as both direc­tor and cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er, and their film reveals the bru­tal­i­ty of the hunt­ing indus­try, where peo­ple can selec­tive­ly kill wild ani­mals for sport, in exchange for finan­cial con­tri­bu­tions to con­ser­va­tion. It is about the strange jux­ta­po­si­tion of act­ing inhu­mane­ly for a sup­posed greater good.

John Hume is intro­duced as a ranch­er who domes­ti­cates rhi­nos and cuts their horns to make them less desir­able as prey. The doc­u­men­tary doesn’t tee up good ver­sus evil, but explores a curi­ous and com­plex grey area – it is about com­pro­mis­ing, pri­ori­tis­ing and ques­tion­ing the strength of your belief sys­tem. In the case of Hume’s rhi­nos, the film ques­tions whether human inter­fer­ence in nature is prefer­able to esca­lat­ed poaching.

It implic­it­ly asks if we can turn a blind eye to cru­el­ty in the hope that, in com­mer­cial­is­ing and con­tain­ing, we can pre­vent extinc­tion. Grap­pling with these top­ics through inter­views and sta­tis­ti­cal analy­sis, the film observes and con­tem­plates, using a mix­ture of fine­ly drawn are­al shots and rougher, hand-held footage.

Tro­phy doesn’t shy away from the impli­ca­tions of such breed­ing meth­ods – there is a lin­ger­ing shot of a wound­ed ele­phant, dying in agony, as a group of tro­phy hunters watch with abject indif­fer­ence. In some scenes, the cam­era hides behind the hunter to build a sense of dread. In these moments, we are just as pow­er­less as the prey and even more fear­ful for it.