(1997) A gravely wounded soldier, found unconscious by a native inhabitant in the Sahara desert, is delivered to the French authorities, who amputate his shredded arm.

Under a directive by Napoleon in 1798 to escort Jean-Michel Venture de Paradis (Michel Piccoli), an aging artist, across Egypt so that he may sketch and paint the ancient monuments and temples of the pharaohs (before they are used for target practice by the French army), Capt Augustin Robert (Ben Daniels) encounters the spirit world of the Jinn.

Following their repulse of an attack by Bedouins on horseback, Capt Robert's unit breaks camp; but he and Venture become disoriented in a sandstorm, separated from the main group. Confident that "You can't get lost in Egypt: there's the Nile and the sea," Capt Robert perseveres - his instinct for survival clashing with the artist's aesthetic impulses - until disheartened by their having only circled back to where they had previously been.

Taking leave of Venture in hopes of alone finding a means for their rescue, thirsty and famished on foot (his horse having succumbed to the heat without nourishment) he comes upon a Bedouin camp and unwittingly enters the tent of a bride, resulting in his being pursued by two men on camels for such a violation of her honor. Fleeing into a narrow canyon, he discovers a temple carved into a rock wall; the Bedouins leave him for the night to the Jinn.

Augustin becomes an uninvited guest of a blue-eyed, spotted she-leopard. Based on a novella by Honoré de Balzac, this strangely fascinating story of a relationship between man and beast comes from director/writer/producer Lavinia Currier (with additional script by Martin Edmunds, though the dialogue is sparse), filmed at Petra in Jordan and in the USA.

At first fearful, then wary of the predator, blond and blue-eyed Augustin, having his sword and knife for defense, drinks from the oasis pool and shares in the kill of a gazelle. A love affair develops between the two; he names her Simoon.

On the walls of a cave he comes across primitive images of a leopard beside a human hand print. When another leopard, seeking a mate, enters the oasis, Augustin strips naked, covers himself with yellow mud, and uses charcoal to apply spots to his skin. But when the men formerly under his command, also lost, pass through the canyon, he changes his spots for his military uniform, afraid of being taken as a deserter, and tries to restrain Simoon from following him ("I will come back") by tying her to a temple column.

This movie somewhat puts me in mind of Carroll Ballard's Never Cry Wolf (1983), starring Patrick Martin Smith.

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Copyright © 2010 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
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