1998-06-01
N/A
52 min
Nakuru National Park in Kenya is rather like a reform centre for wayward youth. Take Scarface: as a young lioness with a reputation for killing sheep and cattle, she was due to be shot. Instead, she was chosen to establish a new pride in Nakuru. Wildlife film-maker Barbara Tyack chronicles the life of this special lion family with a weakness for climbing trees. Fabulous camerawork captures great chase sequences, some gory ones, and the odd romance
A winning story (read the synopsis) narrated wonderfully with zero phony drama. The problem these Bad Cat girls face is inbreeding. The Park is enclosed by an “electric fence that can repel a rhino”. Nobody gets in, nobody gets out. Supposedly. I imagine if an animal walked up to it slowly and bumped it with its nose, it would back off. But there is a scene they captured on film of a young male lion, running for his life from one of the Big Daddies, who jumps through it
Since the Park is enclosed, roughly 20 square kilometers, it must have been easier for the filmmakers to follow what was going on and get all the candid, intimate shots. It’s very well done and looks nice for the time it was produced
Filmed in 1998, all of the lions in the film would be dead by now. They were divided into two prides, all blood related. At the end of the doc they mention a new, young Bad Cat male was introduced to the Park. He needs to take over one of the prides by himself and get copulating. One of the existing prides had two dominant males, the other one had three. Heavy lift unless he can team up with the young males. There has to have been a new chapter to this. I’d love to see a followup
ps - I think the filmmaker’s career was cut short by a baboon attack :(