June 18, 2023

Day: 18, Movie: 18

The June Swoon 2 continued today with another interesting documentary that was on Prime. Wildcat focused in on a British war veteran Harry Turner who left Afghanistan suffering from PTSD. Harry traveled to Peru where he joined up with wildlife biologist Samantha Zwicker, who was involved in the rescue of wild animals threatened by poachers.

As he was joining up, they received a baby ocelot named Khan and Harry became very connected to the wildcat. They began working with the baby ocelot in order to be able to release him into the wild in about a year and a half.

However, tragedy struck, leading to the cat’s unexpected demise, and the subsequent arrival of a second ocelot baby for the pair to raise.

I will say that this documentary was only partially about the cat; it was really more about Harry and Samantha and their traumatic backgrounds. The film does a remarkable job showing the mental distress that Harry was going through, and the illness that he suffered. The portrait of a man who tried to deal with his mental illness by cutting himself on the arm. How he spoke about the suicidal thoughts that troubled him. This was one of the most compelling parts of the doc.

There was also some great moments with Harry and his parents and younger brother who came to Peru to visit him. The relationship between Harry and his brother came through extremely well.

This was a top notch documentary that really has a solid and emotional story at its core. Wildcat is a great story for animal lovers as well as those who are interested in human drama.