Amid the sheltered light and lively sounds of the Peruvian Amazon, so perfectly exotic that it’s almost unreal to foreign eyes and ears, a young man lies on the ground whispering to a dappled cat, whose eyes are fixated off-screen. An encouraging touch sends the feline ninja scrambling up a tree in pursuit. The man looks up at the canopy, transfixed, his face emotionless but for pure fascination. 

The young man is Harry Turner, who at 18, having just finished military training, was deployed to Afghanistan for a six-month tour. Unsurprisingly, he was medically discharged with recurrent depression and PTSD, and left with cold eyes and tattoos to cover the burns on his arms. He returned to his life in England without the will to live it, so he travelled as far as he could to find a new one in the jungle. 

The movie doesn’t show how Turner linked up with Samantha Zwicker and her non-profit wildlife research and rehabilitation centre, Hoja Nueva, but their early days together are a jungle fairy tale. The couple snuggle with sloths, smooch snakes and bath with boar, like a modern Tarzan and Jane, protecting the land and rescuing animals that are injured or orphaned because of logging, mining or wildlife trafficking.

Harry Turner in ‘Wildcat’. Image: courtesy of Prime Video

Samatha Zwicker in ‘Wildcat’. Image: courtesy of Prime Video

Directors Trevor Frost and Melissa Lesh steer clear of the sensitive dynamic of white saviourism inherent in two kids from the west trying to protect the Peruvian jungle from Peruvian loggers and poachers. Zwicker is cognisant of it though; expressing her frustration that there’s little point battling the local loggers when it’s the best way they can make money and the people paying them are the true culprits of the devastating deforestation.

Search for redemption

Despite his lack of training, Turner’s resolve and ability to survive in harsh conditions makes him an apparently useful hand in the jungle, and the diverse work is healing. But his search for redemption truly starts when Zwicker makes him the surrogate mother of Khan, a baby ocelot found in a tree cut down by illegal loggers.

According to Zwicker, long-term raising and reintroduction of a wildcat has never been successful, and the importance of this project gives Turner a strong sense of purpose. Turner’s journey of redemption runs concurrently with the ocelot’s cute coming of age tale, and their co-dependency is undeniably moving. “I’m saving him and he’s saving me,” Turner says.

A baby ocelot in ‘Wildcat’. Image: courtesy of Prime Video

Harry Turner in ‘Wildcat’. Image: courtesy of Prime Video

The score guides your emotions through hopeful melancholy. The slow violins sway sadly but the percussion thumps with excitement and wonder, leaving viewers with a tearful smile. You may think that the story is pretty straightforward from here on – the pair grow together and then Khan is released into the wild with a bittersweet farewell. A mere 17 minutes into the film, we see that it’s not going to be that simple.

The directors have to combat the urge we share with Turner to possess. We often see Turner walking alongside this wild jungle cat as if it were a dog, like the tame and intelligent daemons of the famous fantasy novel His Dark Materials. But each time we are reminded that Khan is not supposed to be a pet, he is being “rewilded”. Turner tugs at a bird carcass and reprimands Khan for playing with it rather than eating it. “We’re wild animals, me and you. We’re wild,” he says.

Harry Turner in ‘Wildcat’. Image: courtesy of Prime Video

There’s a primal fascination in watching Turner mothering (like when he attempts to teach Khan that a caiman can be food, and not to be afraid of it even after it bites him) but the most important role of a mother ocelot would be getting its kitten to self-sufficiency, so Turner faces a challenge familiar to many people who work with animals – letting go.

State of mental health

The connection between the ocelot and Turner’s mental health makes this process extremely difficult. Caring for the cat helps him to move forward but he also can’t become completely reliant on that love, because it has an expiry date. When Turner says, “I’m worried that he can’t live by himself,” the statement applies as much to the cat reintroduced into the wild as his own struggling to move on from his trauma.

When the cat is reaching independent age and Turner is forced to create distance and show tough love to this creature he loves more than anything, it brings out a violent resurgence of his anger and self-loathing that makes one question whether a rewilding program is really the best type of animal therapy for someone so mentally unstable. It’s more confusing an emotional journey than rehabilitating an injured housecat (which can be kept around for its whole life and whose species’ success doesn’t depend on the mental state of a person.)

Turner and Zwicker both speak about how working with animals has helped them surpass their trauma, but while Zwicker communicates well and has a good understanding of herself, Turner is still a boy, hurt twofold by the violence he’s witnessed and been made to enforce. The ups and downs of Turner’s depression depend dangerously on the success of the ocelot-project and he frequently speaks about killing himself when things aren’t going well.

In one particularly shocking scene, we see the shadows of Zwicker fighting Turner not to cut himself. Turner and Zwicker’s relationship is a romantic drama revolving around his mental illness, and a caring and sorrowful example of how a person’s self harm also hurts those who love them. 

Zwicker in turn is impacted by Turner’s family, who join the couple in the rainforest late in the film. Revealing interactions during the visit include when Zwicker’s younger brother asks why he has scars on his arm, but for the most part, their visit is edited like a holiday advert. It’s cute, and shows how important it is that we experience nature, but it’s a little inconsequential, and the family’s privilege is painful to behold. 

The most mesmerising parts of the film are the repetitive ones – the same back and forth of Turner’s hurt and healing, the same sweetness and compilations of handheld footage of a wild cat pouncing about adorably and transitioning from loving big-eyed fluffball into a majestic predator. And of course, admiration of Khan as he pads deftly through the branches, shoulder blades undulating, and letting out low grumbles, shadows of the roars of his larger cousins. DM/ML

Wildcat is available in South Africa on Prime Video.

You can contact We’re Watching via [email protected]

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