Netflix India has released its heartwarming documentary called The Elephant Whisperers. The short film is indeed a very wholesome story that would be loved by a particular section of the audience. Although we doubt the magnitude of views it will earn, their effort in bringing true Indian stories must be appreciated.
The documentary is originally Tamil but also dubbed into Hindi, Telugu, and English. While the original Tamil version is undisputedly the best, Netflix India failed to do the dubbing job finely.
First of all, the dubbing in Hindi is extremely poor. The audio fails to even come close to the original emotion let alone replicating it. Although this is a universal problem and rarely do we find a dub that is as good as the original version.
The mistake we are talking about lies in the refinement. Even if you switch to the Hindi or English version, you can still clearly listen to the original Tamil audio in a dimmed voice. We realize that the film was extremely challenging to dub because it was shot in open fields with real people.
So naturally, the dubbing would be very challenging. But it all comes down to the user experience. “Not dubbing” would still be a better option than the kind of dubbing they are providing.
Regardless, The Elephant Whisperers is streaming and if you are a nature-loving person then we recommend you watch the film in Tamil. There are English subtitles if you are not familiar with the language.