The Sportsman

In a sun-bleaked Ruritanian fever-dream, Larry—part pith-helmeted Nimrod, part vaudeville marionette—struts through cardboard jungles and marble conservatories as though the planet were his private shooting gallery. He dispatches trembling rabbits with the bored flourish of a sous-chef flicking parsley, pockets canaries like yellow handkerchiefs, and serenades the Sultan’s seraglio with the swagger of a man who believes testosterone alone can redraw national borders. Yet when six papier-mâché lions—ears twitching, tails dipped in sepia—lope through French doors, the hunter’s bravado liquefies; knees akimbo, derby airborne, he ricochets off palm fronds and statuary in spasms of slapstick contrition, a self-inflated demigod reduced to panicked mercury. Around him, wives in chiffon and gold lamé ripple like spilled opals, their laughter a serrated lullaby; confetti gunfire drifts through vaulted glass; and the camera, drunk on its own newfound mobility, pirouettes until hunter, hunted, and harem fuse into one whirring zoetrope of hubris.