Parents' Guide to Living with Leopards

The cinematography of Living with Leopards is stunning. Shot after shot shows off the graceful animals' beauty and their hardscrabble lives in a truly eat-or-get-eaten existence. In any case, this is not for the squeamish. Impala are stalked, gruesomely killed , then torn apart and eaten. The narrator's tendency to anthropomorphize the animals by constantly telling us what they are thinking is a drawback. After a group of baboons chase a young leopard away, the narrator says, "She realized things can change quickly out here." In fact, we have no idea if the young leopard learned a thing from her experience. During a mating sequence, narrator asserts without any way of knowing, "She makes sure he (the male leopard) knows these are going to be his cubs." Again, there is no way to know if their mating ritual has anything to with conveying this message. After the mother and her now-mature daughter have a fight, the narrator asserts, "You could see confusion in Kutjira's (the daughter's) face." No, in fact, you can't see anything in her face. The photographers are worried the male cub is too hotheaded and slow-witted to learn to survive, but when he makes a daring kill, the narrator states that the kill gave the young leopard confidence and "changed his mindset."

Despite these narrative missteps, we admire the intelligence and patience of these skillful hunters, but also feel for the beautiful prey who get eaten.