Have You Seen This Movie?

Has anyone out there in the blogosphere seen the following movie?

In the first gray light of an African dawn, a hunter shoots a black panther and throws her body into the back of his jeep. Her soul ignores a powerful force trying to pull her away, and instead she follows the hunter to a cement building in the middle of the jungle, with a wide door on one side that the jeep drives into. The driver of the jeep tosses the panther's body to some waiting young men dressed only in white loinclothes, while the hunter draws aside a velvet drape and steps into a room where a corpulent man wearing a tall hat greets him with disdain. The hunter (who is the only white person involved in this story) and the other man clearly cannot agree on the amount of money the panther is worth; the hunter wants more than for a usual leopard, since black panthers are rarer, but the other man points out that the skin is worth less. The panther's spirit leaves this small, luxurious room and goes back to the large warehouse area full of hides and horns and tusks. She sees her body lying on a table, staring lifelessly at nothing, while her teeth and claws have already been fashioned into a necklace and two bracelets. Finally she allows the force that has been tugging at her to call her to a place where there is no time, and the light is so bright that it seems dark.

The spirit has an argument with a being which is one and yet more than one: she does not want to be a human, but the being says she is an old soul and must be human to achieve the next level. (This is not in words, but in pure ideas.) Finally the soul says she will be human on the condition that she does not forget, because she does not want to be destructive like the other humans, and she only wants to be human once so she'd better achieve enlightenment in one lifetime. The other being says she does not realize what she is asking for, but she is granted her conditions and is born a human.

This is the earliest memory I have. A lot of the hunter/fat guy interaction didn't make sense to me until much later, when I pieced it together, since at the time I did not understand words. Richard Bonomo was the one who pointed out to me that the "hunter" was actually a poacher, so I was basing my idea that all humans are destructive on the actions of some people that almost everyone else would agree are deplorable. How ironic that I would hate humans based on some especially hateful humans! Of course, being a good Catholic, Rich does not believe this is an actual memory. Attempting to be a good Catholic, I have no idea what to think. (Another irony: all the Christians I have told this story to found it interesting and the only one who immediately pooh-poohed it is my New Age uncle, who believes in reincarnation... but only between humans.) Rich and Kathbert did laugh about me arguing with God, since it was so, you know, TYPICAL of me. Rich said this must have been a movie I saw as a child, so I am wondering if anyone knows what movie it is.

Famous Hat