Sal de Jaguar
AIMDb Rating
84K
Your Rating
Popularity
9
“Lo que la sal cura no se olvida.”
In a high-desert village in Oaxaca, an elderly woman begins selling tiny clay jars of black salt she claims came from the tears of a jaguar that visited her in the night. Word spreads, customers arrive, and the village's young schoolteacher returns from the city to investigate what is happening to his aunt. Whether the jaguar is real, hallucinated, or something the village agrees to share matters less and less as the season turns.
- Director
- Catalina Olvera
- Writers
- Catalina Olvera · Tomás Yáñez
- Stars
- Lucia Martín del Campo · Aldo Carbajal · Isabela Quezada ›
Top Cast (5)
Lucia Martín del Campo
Tía Rufina
Aldo Carbajal
Pablo
Isabela Quezada
Niña Soledad
Felipe Quiñones
Don Ezequiel
Margarita Vela
La Curandera
User Reviews
5 reviewsOlvera's quiet masterpiece
by cinema_mexicano
Magical realism done with discipline and care. The film never explains its central image and is the stronger for it. Lucia Martín del Campo's face in the final scene contains an entire generation of grief and humor.
A new Mexican classic
by festival_circuit
Picked it up at San Sebastián and have been recommending it ever since. The pacing is unhurried in a way that requires you to slow down with it. The Oaxacan light is its own performance.
Earnest and earned
by magical_realism_buff
Belongs in the lineage of Mexican films that take the supernatural seriously without making it cute or campy. Catalina Olvera respects her village setting as much as her camera.
If you need explanations, look elsewhere
by literal_minded
The film actively resists telling you what is and isn't real. That's a feature for some viewers and a bug for me. Beautifully made, just not my register.
Patient, tender, surprising
by spanish_lang_film_jl
I expected another social-realist Mexican drama and got something genuinely strange and warm. The schoolteacher's slow softening is wonderfully written.
Details
- Release date
- October 3, 2008 (Mexico)
- Country of origin
- Mexico, Spain
- Language
- Spanish
- Also known as
- Salt of the Jaguar · Le Sel du Jaguar · Jaguar's Tears
- Filming locations
- Sierra Mixe, Oaxaca, Mexico · San Mateo del Mar, Oaxaca, Mexico · Estudios Churubusco Azteca, Mexico City, Mexico
- Production companies
- Polvora Cine · Producciones del Sol · Estudios Madrid Sur
Box office
- Budget
- $1,800,000 (estimated)
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $28,000
- Gross US & Canada
- $384,000
- Gross worldwide
- $4,280,000
Technical specs
- Runtime
- 1h 56m
- Color
- Color
- Sound mix
- Dolby Digital
- Aspect ratio
- 2.39 : 1
