digital film; running time: 3:40 min.

"On a Pure Jag, Unmarked Grave" is a homophonous translation of the Prologue of Carmen Condé's long poem from 1963, Jaguar Puro Y Marchito, a tribute to the people's struggle in Nicaragua. The "translation," obliquely resonant with the Condé poem.  The film, spectacularly and complexly multi-layered, refers more directly to the Condé poem, using a jaguar to literally frame the action, which comprises footage from the anti-war, student and civil rights movements of the 1960s in the USA as well as textures and movements from non-human nature: the ocean, dense lithic surfaces, foliage, and so forth.  The many people moving in protest marches comprises the "human path" of the poem, and the oceanic waves also embody a kind of powerful inevitability of movement that complements the social movement. Most haunting/startling/uncanny for me is the shot of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr preparing to mount the steps of a government building.  The phrase "unmarked grave" in the poem's title foreshadows King's assassination in 1968.  The soundtrack creates a pattern of tension and periodic quasi-release: the treated sounds of bats create a high, restless static punctuated by a jaguar's slow, melodic growl. (blurb by Maria Damon)

Credits:

"On a Pure Jag, Unmarked Grave" poem by Maria Damon
(as homophonous translation of the Prologue of Carmen Condé's, Jaguar Puro Y Marchito)

Visual Concept, Graphic and Editing by CamillE Bacos
Soundtrack by mIEKAL aND

Archival footage supplied by the Internet Moving Images Archive (at archive.org) in association with Prelinger Archives

http://driftlessmedia.com/movies/on_a_pure_jag.mov