David Claerbout: Die reine Notwendigkeit

The film “Die reine Notwendigkeit” (2016) is a surprising adaptation of the animated movie classic “The Jungle Book” of 1967. Claerbout’s one-hour loop turns the sentimental and comical story about dancing, singing, and trumpet-playing jungle animals into a film that has dispensed all ‘humanization’ of the animals – but also its young protagonist Mowgli – and portrays them instead in a manner befitting their species. Baloo, Bagheera and Kaa, whose songs and slapstick acts have been delighting children and adults alike for decades, are now back to being pure bear, panther and python.

For “Die reine Notwendigkeit”, the artist painstakingly redrew the frames of Wolfgang Reitherman’s prototype by hand, one by one, and then assembled them to create an entirely new film. Now no more than shadowy outlines, the animals move around before a jungle backdrop. Claerbout alludes to the original only in the work’s title, “Die reine Notwendigkeit”, a reference to Baloo the Bear’s song about the “bare necessities of life”. For more information, please visit staedelmuseum.de.