Take 2 Movie Review: Exotic animals as pets is a documentary with bite!

By ART RYAN

Correspondent

“The Elephant in the Living Room,” which opened last week at the Ritz 16 in Vorhees, N.J., is a fascinating look into the subculture of exotic pet owners in America today.
We’ve all seen the headlines and news footage that pops up every now and then of a pet chimpanzee or large cat that attacks its owner or unsuspecting neighbor. But just how widespread is this uniquely American fascination with raising wild animals as household pets is, has never been packaged together as well as it is here in this engaging documentary.
Director Michael Webber pools together news reports from around the country of incident after incident where a wild animal kept as a pet either gets loose or turns on its owner jeopardizing the public safety.
His documentary cuts back and forth between exploring the laws governing the right to own exotic pets or lack thereof and the life of Ohio public safety officer, Tim Harrison. Harrison not only works as a policeman, firefighter and paramedic but also is charged with protecting both the exotic animals and the public from the potential danger the pet wild animals pose. One scene in which Harrison attends an exotic reptile sale in Hamburg, Pa., is eye-opening as he purchases a venomous Puff Adder, the most poisonous snake from the African continent.
Harrison often takes a hidden camera along on his travels and sometimes to completely legal trading venues. One such venue is an Amish exotic pet expo in Ohio, where Harrison’s hidden camera finds quite literally everything wild under the sun available for sale.
Director Webber, does a good job of providing both sides of the argument, by interviewing both a Nevadan couple raising big cats as well as an exotic pet store owner. And although the cougar-loving couple have lots of land and apparent resources to care for wild animals, the film juxtaposes their arguments by introducing us to Terry Brumfield. A good man with a love for his two pet African lions, but when one escapes and Safety Officer Tim Harrison gets involved, the film takes a jarringly different turn as it explores the relationship between the two men.
Brumfield is a likeable guy, disabled and living in his overgrown home in rural Ohio. But the problem with his two big cats quickly escalate as a litter of four cubs arrive shortly after Officer Harrison shows up to confront the lion’s owner. The film does it’s best to present Brumfield’s situation honestly and in his own words. But his delusions are only made more apparent when a frighteningly graphic scene caught on tape by Brumfield himself, hammers home the point of just how dangerous it is to own wild animals. Not just for the owners but for the animals as well.
Although, I felt the film seemed to forget some of the larger issues raised during the earlier part of the film, the situation that arises between Brumfield and Harrison at film’s end places an exclamation point on many of the earlier issues.
“Elephants in the Living Room” is of course a title with a lot of meaning. Like the often used phrase “Elephant in the room” which has come to denote something no one is willing to discuss, the subject of owning wild animals as pets is not only discussed in this film, but honestly explored as well.

By DAVID BJORKGREN

Managing editor


In the interest of truth in advertising, there is no elephant in the living room.
There are, however, several lions, tigers and references to bears.

Oh, my.

“Elephant in the Living Room,” a documentary by filmmaker Michael Webber, sneaks up on you. It introduces you to an issue you probably haven’t thought much about-the ownership of exotic or wild pets, than totally ropes you in. Before this film appeared, I had devoted very little brain power to the subject, except for the occasional news tidbit about the rare mountain lion on the loose or an escaped cobra from the Bronx Zoo.
But Webber takes us inside the world occupied by people who are not content with the domesticated dog, cat, bird or fish, but instead seek their animal kingdom intimacy with wild or exotic creatures like lions, tigers, chimps, poisonous snakes, alligators and the like.
He does this by making the documentary personal, focusing on the lives of two very different people; Tim Harrison, a Ohio police, paramedic and animal control officer whose job it is to answer complaints about these animals; and Terry Brumfield, who happens to own two lions, a male and female. Both men cross paths when Brumfield, in poor health, is told he cannot keep the animals he dearly loves.
Their experiences are then peppered with news stories, hidden camera exposes and expert interviews to provide a national perspective to a dark American secret: People are raising these animals, than setting them loose when they can no longer care for them. The film explores the impact that has on the animals and on those who are at risk of being attacked by these former pets.
The chief storyteller is Harrison, whose exploits as animal control officer provide much of the narrative for the film. We follow him to a scene where a tiger’s corpse has been left out in the wilds, presumably shot to death by its owner who could no longer care for it. We watch him stalk wild beasts with nothing but a lasso attached to a pole. We see him visit an exotic reptile show via hidden camera in Hamburg, Pa., a secret underworld where people from around the country come to buy a wide range of snakes, reptiles and amphibians, many of them lethal.
At another point, he visits a second show, ostensibly run by Amish businessmen, where wild animals are auctioned to the highest bidder. These are pretty chilling images, to be sure, as are the shots of abandoned alligators showing up in local creeks, lions along the highway and giant snakes let loose in the Florida wilds, now breeding like crazy.
But it is the personal stories that provide the film with its emotional punch. Harrison is not just a man on an animal hunt. He cares about the animals he comes across and makes every effort to find them a safe home, where they can be cared for properly without endangering the public. His concern and frustration at not being to help the animals and their owners bleeds through in the film.

Likewise, we see how torn apart lion owner Terry Brumfield is when he realizes he can longer take care of his pets, or the cubs they have given birth to. Sure, part of you wants to remind him how stupid an idea it was to take in lions as pets in the first place, but after seeing his heart-wrenching turmoil, it’s hard not to shed a sympathetic tear. The film reaches its climax when Harrison and Brumfield meet, with Harrison working to defuse the situation by finding a good home for the lions.
It could be said that the film lost its way a little bit when it focused more on Brumfield’s situation in the last quarter of the film then it did on the national problem. But Brumfield’s lions did make for riveting storytelling and I can see how hard it would be not to take the film there.
In the end, this film has a lot going for it; a quirky theme, quirky people, excellent camera work and editing and really cool shots of big and dangerous animals. The film has won Best Documentary at four film festivals and took the 2011 Genesis Award by the Humane Society of the United States for outstanding documentary.
Unfortunately, it’s going to be hard to find. So far, it’s only opening on the big screen in Vorhees, N.J. But if the film catches on, that could change. Definitely keep an eye out for it on DVD release. It’s worth it. I give “Elephant in the Living Room” 8-and-three-quarter snarling, snapping, pouncing and hissing exotic pets out of 10.