Alpha: A Howling Good Film​​

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           As a Christmas 2020 gift, I received the 2018 film Alpha on Blu-ray. Set in Europe, 20,000 years ago, during the last ice age, Alpha follows a young hunter, who gets separated from his hunting party, as he befriends an injured wolf, separated from her pack. I recently came around to watching it. And it’s a really good film. I’m not saying so just because I love all things prehistoric. I’d like to go over all my thoughts on Alpha, from the story and characters, to visuals and accuracy. And be warned, there are spoilers for the film ahead.

           As mentioned above, the film takes place in Europe, 20,000 years ago. The earth is in the last ice age during this time. The protagonist is a young hunter named Keda, played by Kodi Smit-McPhee. During his first bison hunt with his clan’s hunting party, one of the bison turns on Keda, and flings him over a cliff. Keda falls down onto a ledge, falling unconscious in the process. The rest of the party thinks that Keda is dead, and eventually leave.

            A day or two later, Keda regains consciousness, climbs down the ledge, and ventures to find his way home. On the way, he is chased by a pack of wolves. He manages to injure one of them, and he evades the rest of the pack by hiding in a tree. Keda spends the night in the tree, waking up to find the injured wolf still there. He prepares to kill it but has mercy on the poor creature. They find shelter in a cave, where they both heal from their injuries. During this time, they initially are wary and hostile towards each other. Keda soon establishes dominance over the wolf. After spending several days in the cave, Keda and the wolf are well enough to disembark. He tries to get her to leave him alone, but the wolf follows him around.

            Eventually, Keda names the wolf Alpha, and the two form a bond and hunt together. They face several dangers together, such as thin ice, the brutal winter weather, and savage ice age animals. Through thick and thin, and despite their waning health, Keda and Alpha make it back to Keda’s clan. The medicine woman of the tribe heals both Keda and Alpha, and it’s revealed that Alpha was pregnant the whole time, giving birth to a litter of pups inside the medicine woman’s tent. The film ends with Keda with the hunting party again, but this time, they are joined by other wolves, establishing that wolves will eventually give rise to man’s best friend.

             I enjoy the character dynamics and portrayals in Alpha. Keda and Alpha, being the main characters, have the best developed relationship in the film. Keda learns more about his inner strength, thanks to being out in the wilderness with no one except the wolf. Kodi Smit-McPhee does an excellent job bringing Keda to life and showing how the character develops. Alpha, the wolf, is well done, too. She is played by Chuck, a male Czechoslovakian wolfdog, and it impresses me at how well Chuck was trained. There are a few instances in which Alpha is computer generated, such as scenes where she and Keda go hunting, and when she defends him from a cave lion. Also, through Keda and Alpha’s bonding, they develop some activities that we would see in modern human-dog relationships. For instance, when Keda throws a stick at Alpha to shoo her away, she grabs it and runs up to him with it, essentially playing the first game of fetch.

            The other characters who are of some importance are Tau and Rho, Keda’s father and mother, respectively. Tau is the clan’s leader, and the leader of the hunting party. A good chunk of the first act is about the relationship between Keda and Tau. Tau believes that Keda has inner strength and is excited to have his son join him in the hunt. On the way to the hunt, Tau tries to prepare Keda, by trying to have him slay a wild boar that they catch on the way, and by demonstrating how a good leader leads by using wolves as an example. Rho, on the other hand, only appears in the beginning and end of the film. It’s clear that she loves her son, but she has some doubts about Keda being ready for the hunt, saying that he “leads with his heart, not his spear” (which is shown when Keda can’t bring himself to kill the boar on the way to the hunt). When Keda and Alpha return to the clan, both Tau and Rho are beyond relieved, happy, and proud that Keda has returned. Despite these nice scenes, we only get one brief scene of Tau informing Rho about Keda’s supposed death. I think it would have been nice to have more scenes of Rho and Tau mourning their son together, with Tau perhaps agreeing with his wife’s doubts. It would have made the scene in which Keda returns have a slightly stronger impact.

            There are other characters, too, such as Kappa, Keda’s friend who is killed by a cave lion, and a friend of Tau, who leads another hunting party (I am blanking on the name). While it would have been nice to get to know these characters a little more, and see whether or not they believe in Keda, I know that the relationship between Keda and Alpha is the heart of the story, and is, therefore, the primary focus of the movie.

            And for one last detail about the story, I need to mention that there are two versions of Alpha that are on the Blu-ray disc: the theatrical cut, and the director’s cut. The two cuts are very similar to each other, but there are some notable differences. In the theatrical version, we begin with the bison hunt, and the opening scene ends with Keda going over the cliff. It then jumps back to one week earlier, where Tau is testing the young men of the tribe to see if they’re ready for the hunt. In the director’s cut, the testing scene is first. And also, the English translation of the fictional language that the characters speak is different in some areas. In one scene, Keda wakes up one morning to find Alpha licking his face and trying to cuddle with him. In the theatrical cut, Keda calls Alpha a stinky animal. In the director’s cut, Keda says he forgives Alpha for her aggression and attack on him earlier. And last of all, after Alpha gives birth to her pups, there are differences. In the director’s cut, the film fades out, and then there’s a shot of Keda and his fellow hunters, walking towards the camera with wolves in toe. In the theatrical version, an additional scene comes in between these parts. In this scene, Keda and Alpha watch Alpha’s pups play with each other. So, in the end, I like both cuts of the film, and it’s hard to pick which one I like better. Both versions have great acting, good scenes, and great visuals.

            The visuals of Alpha are very well done. One of my favorite shots in the movie is where it shows Alpha pouncing onto the ice of the frozen lake, trying to help Keda. The filmmakers shot on location in Iceland and Canada. In fact, one of the locations in Canada was Dinosaur Provincial Park, in Alberta, a place I visited many, many years ago. There are several beautiful shots of the ice age landscape, sometimes showcasing the various animals that lived during that time.

            I enjoyed the ice age fauna, or kinds of animals, showcased in the film. The animals that we see in Alpha are woolly mammoths, woolly rhinos, steppe bison, vultures, cave hyenas, cave lions, wild boars, and wolves. Most of the animals are portrayed fairly accurately. The only major issue that I saw was that the cave lion had large canine teeth akin to a saber-toothed cat. The cave lion did not have these in real life, and it was not a member of the saber-tooth family. Other than that, the only nitpick I have with the fauna of Alpha is that I wish they had more screen time. But once again, since the story is about Keda and Alpha, I acknowledge that the ice age animals are not the focus of the movie. But it would have been nice to see more scenes with woolly mammoths and woolly rhinos, and I would have enjoyed seeing other ice age animals of Europe, such as prehistoric horses and the Irish elk. Last of all, I really enjoyed the three scenes with the cave hyenas. If I’m not mistaken, Alpha is one of the few, if not only, instances in which they appear in non-educational media in recent times.

            Next, I want to discuss the Keda’s people. One of the most notable things is that no one speaks English. As mentioned earlier, all dialogue that is spoken is of a fictional language, translated into English subtitles. Since the English language would not be created until many thousands of years later, it makes great sense that it is not used here. The clothing of Keda and his people are also fairly accurate to what we know about clothing of the people from the ice age, wearing woven, fur-lined clothes that would keep them warm. The hunters also use stone-tipped spears in their hunt, which look just like the ones that have been found at dig sites. Overall, I applaud the filmmakers for the amount of research put forth for Alpha, especially since it’s a work of fiction and not a documentary.

            All in all, Alpha is a very good film. I enjoy the relationship between Keda and Alpha, the mostly accurate depiction of ice age Europe (from its animals to its people), and the great visuals. It’s a great fictionalized, though well-researched and imaginative, story on how man tamed wolves to be the first dogs. I would definitely recommend this film for people who love all things prehistoric, anthropologists, dog lovers, and anyone who appreciates a “boy and his dog” kind of tale. Watch the film if you haven’t, and let me know what you think.