Jungle Cat

A Masterpiece

     

Quite possibly one of the most underrated documentary films of all time. This classic film is an interpretation of jungle life from the perspective of a vibrant family of jaguars. Several socially relevant themes are touched upon, including biracial relationships and ground level political movements (the father is a black panther). Despite taking up very controversial themes close to heart of jaguar life, the producers do a wonderful job of maintaining fair and balanced reportage. To avoid a Pantheracentric worldview several vignettes taking up the outside perspective of new world monkeys are introduced. The vignettes serve the dual purpose of providing supplemental social commentary and additional ethical queries. Every creature, the film seems to say, has virtues and vices, moments of transcendent joy and world shattering sorrow. The symbolism is quite clear: the jungle represents society in all of its complexity. Jaguar qua jaguar is of no exceptional importance. It is the jaguar in daily life, a mirror of our own passion, violence, and beauty that it is essential to understand. Life, this film shows us, gains meaning through multiplicity of experience and perspective. This documentary is quite likely the most power pro-diversity statement made in all of the 1960s.