The Last Male on Earth (2019)

Directed by: Floor van der Meulen | 72 minutes | documentary

Rhinoceroses are among the prominent victims of the ecocide wave that is now engulfing living nature thanks to human activity. Virtually all rhinoceros species are teetering on the brink of extinction, especially since Asia is paying a fortune for the horns that the animals naturally wear on their heads. The finely ground ornaments of the rhinoceros are said to be a cure for a wide variety of ailments, but there is no evidence to support that theory. Not so strange, since the horn mainly consists of keratin, the same material that human fingernails are made of. Because tinsel is a magnet for powerful figures of dubious repute, rhino poaching has fallen into the hands of powerful criminals and internationally operating crime cartels. They hire local front men, equip the poachers with modern weaponry and take the lion’s share of the profit themselves.

Over the years, the northern white rhinoceros has been the hardest hit by the double-edged sword of human greed and archaic superstition. So heavy, in fact, that only two living specimens of this once quite numerous subspecies remain today. ‘The Last Male on Earth’ tells the tragic story of Sudan, the last male representative of his race. Sudan was born a wild rhinoceros in 1973, in the country it is named after. At the age of two, he was captured and taken, along with five other northern white rhinoceroses, to the zoo of Dvůr Králové (Czech Republic). In 2009, now 36 years old, Sudan made the trip to the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. There the animal was brought together with the majority of the remaining northern white rhinoceroses. The idea: a more natural habitat would help stimulate the mating urge and increase the chance of offspring.

After the deaths of Suni and Angalifu (two of the last three males) in 2014, Sudan found itself in a peculiar position: that of the last male of its subspecies. A year later, after extensive research, it turned out that he was now too old to provide for offspring in a natural way. His semen was secured and frozen in a sperm bank in Berlin. Najin and Fatu, the daughter and granddaughter of Sudan respectively, are the last two northern white rhinoceroses in the world after the death of the old male.

In 2018, Sudan briefly became world news. His death in March of that year was among the usual headlines about largely trivial events. ‘The Last Male on Earth’ is a more in-depth portrait of Sudan and shows the last days of the rhinoceros on the savannas of the Kenyan nature reserve Ol Pejeta. His existence is somewhere between a true-to-life life and a stay in an animal park. Sudan does not live in a cage or very confined enclosure, but is guarded 7 days a week and 24 hours a day by an armed ranger team. In addition, Sudan is regularly visited by tourists, film crews, photographers and journalists from all over the world. And then, of course, there are the scientists, who are fighting for the survival of the northern white rhinoceros using the very latest IVF techniques and Sudan’s genetic material.

‘The Last Male on Earth’ is a time document that accurately portrays the last years of Sudan and actually counts down to the fateful and inescapable day when the last male representative of his subspecies leaves the land of the living. The film does that with a smile and a tear. For example, the popularity of Sudan is fully exposed. We see how Sudan merchandise is eager to take off and follow tourists who travel from far and wide to Kenya to meet Sudan. The highlight of this Endangered Species Tour is an encounter with the famous male rhinoceros. The visitors can pet him one by one and have their picture taken with him. It even turns out that the rhinoceros had its own account on the dating site Tinder at lifetimes.

All this evokes the feeling of a tragicomic fairground and stands in stark contrast to the more serious, contemplative and contemplative passages in which the caretakers and guards of Sudan take center stage. In these scenes, filmmaker Floor van der Meulen brings the sincere emotions of the reserve staff into the limelight with verve. The images of a slowly declining Sudan, just like the fragments in which the poaching crisis is discussed, are sobering and a great counterbalance to the more light-hearted moments. The film also makes regular trips to the lab, where the viewer becomes part of the efforts to save the northern white rhinoceros as a subspecies from permanent extinction through artificial insemination. Thanks to those efforts, there is some hope on the horizon again, as scientists have now succeeded in collecting eggs from the last two females. The intention is to fertilize it with the frozen sperm from Sudan. If fertilized successfully, the embryo can be transferred to a southern white rhinoceros, which then acts as a surrogate mother.

The great strength of ‘The Last Male on Earth’ is that the film manages to subtly emphasize a tragic characteristic of the human species: the tendency to proceed to protect the vulnerable only when we use it through our destructive nature. have almost been wiped out. Whether it concerns saving endangered species, combating the climate crisis or embracing peace processes, we are only inclined to collectively oversee our (mis)deeds and repair the damage we have caused when it really is five to twelve. is. This attitude stems largely from our unwavering self-confidence and often naive optimism; man is in charge of planet earth and with the help of his inventiveness and technology he can straighten everything that is crooked. The great thing is that Van der Meulen does not provide that message with a moralizing and pedantic tone. Are the hyped-up scientists who talk about the cloning of endangered animals the new hope for nature or merely representatives of the system that sees the dominant role of man in earthly life as a matter of course? Do we really know why we go to such lengths to save the northern white rhinoceros, but at the same time are blind to the fate of many other, perhaps less imaginative life forms? Do we want to continue to rule over all other life on Earth? And in view of continued population growth, how long will the planet have room for wildlife and pristine wilderness? Instead of providing ready-made answers, Van der Meulen gives viewers the space to think about these important questions for themselves.

The end result is a tragicomic documentary that has more depth than you might suspect at first glance. ‘The Last Male on Earth’ is more than just the sad story of the last northern white male rhinoceros. It is also a film that holds up a mirror to the viewer and forces the viewer to ask moralistic questions about man’s attitude towards his fellow creatures on earth.