Project Nim

[superhero]

Stinking of alcohol at 10:00 am in the morning

Did others see parallels here with Rise of the Planet of the Apes? The way Nim is raised with a human family restricted to the house, then allowed to roam free in the woods (or an a 28 acre estate here), then abruptly moved to an animal compound where he is caged, not given special treatment and subjected to the electric rods?

I indeed had flashbacks scenes coming from yesterday's screening of ROTPOTA!
this is the exact same story! even the cages in the Apes facility are pretty much identical!

@celini - sorry to have missed you again! Where were you sitting?

I was few rows closer to the screen on the left!
I regretted not to have move and sit next with you when a guy stinking of alcohol came to sit next me

[prettyxcool]

@celini - sorry to have missed you again! Where were you sitting?

I was few rows closer to the screen on the left!
I regretted not to have move and sit next with you when a guy stinking of alcohol came to sit next me

What I was thinking sh How dreadful for you celini.

[superhero]

I really can't imagine the type of person who would stink of alcohol and wake up 9ish to go and watch a documentary about a chimp

[Celini]

in my experience alcoholic people do smell of alcohol pretty much all the time; and for his defence my sense of smell is rather sensitive
(if anybody had a late night drinking I would smell it the following morning)

[superhero]

hence it's hard for them to get up so early in the morning on a Sunday

[Beate]

So I spent 2 hours angry this morning. The first 20 minutes because the film just wouldn't start and when I eventually went out to enquire I was told they waited "till everybody was here". Since when are we waiting for stragglers? Everyone knows when it's supposed to start! First they started it at 10.30am (we were the only two people in the screening room at that point at the Ritzy Brixton and had to tell them to turn it off), then they left us waiting another 45 minutes, and it never filled up completely anyway. And then they showed trailers and all! I will be sending a complaint.

I spent the next 100 minutes angry at people who think it's alright to remove chimp babies from their mother at birth for scientific research. There is no excuse for it. Herb Terrace (the name is too aromatic for that bloke) was an arrogant scientist who seemed to have some kind of magnetic attraction on young, female students who couldn't wait to mother his chimp for him - his scientific project but strangely very much neglected by him. Poor Nim didn't know whether he was coming or going, completeley inadequately treated for almost the entirety of his too short life by well-meaning but woefully unequipped people with no sense of what they were doing. The first woman who raised him in her family annoyed me the most, she was just a stupid individual. I didn't mind about the re-enactments, they were necessary I think, and I thought it was quite powerful how people were introduced into the documentary, and the camera panned away from them to the right when they left Nim's life. I don't understand why the owner of that Black Beauty Ranch wasn't questioned more about why he didn't want Bob Ingersoll to visit, the only person who truly seemed to care about Nim. It isn't enough to b*y a chimp and build him a cage, you need to give him mates and stimulation as well, otherwise this misguided rescue attempt is anything but and even makes a wild animal more sad and tortured. The shocking naivety displayed throughout the film was the one thing that stuck with me most - people taking on an animal who know nothing about it. Oh, and then Mr Terrace made money out of Nim by writing a book about him in which he suddenly said he didn't think that Nim communicated but instead just begged for things, a fact that Bob Ingersoll strongly denies. But then, how would he know, having never really spent much time with him or had competent assistants who actually kept logbooks and the like.

This documentary, as strange as it sounds, has strong parallels with The Rise of the Planet of the Apes, as a chimp does not belong into a house with humans, however much well-intentioned it was.

9/10 Go see it, it will make your blood boil.

[David]

Done my review: http://moviefilmreviews.wordpress.com/2 ... oject-nim/ Hope it does well. James Marsh is obviously a fantastic documentary maker. I thought Man on Wire was even better.

[canadian_turtle]

Was lovely to see Mei again and meet ejwrank (I didn't instantly recognise her because she wasn't carrying a fridge ), OH & David.

Onto the movie...

I can't believe some of them were actors?

And I agree, very little sympathy for most of them (though I liked Bob and to some extend Joyce and the male teacher), especially the sleazy Herb who likes young students and doesn't care for Nim at all unless it's a photo op.

The movie made me sad and angry, but also made me think.

8/10

I actually went in expecting another documentary from which I've seen part before. It's about two gay men who raise a monkey, then release him back in the wild and 10 years later or so go back to visit him, it's a beatiful and tearful reunion - anyone know what I'm talking about?

[David]

I can't believe some of them were actors?

To be fair I think only actors were used in the re-creations, so they were more like extras but it would have been nice if it was slightly clearer. All the interviews were 100% real.

[ejwrank]

I actually went in expecting another documentary from which I've seen part before. It's about two gay men who raise a monkey, then release him back in the wild and 10 years later or so go back to visit him, it's a beatiful and tearful reunion - anyone know what I'm talking about?

I remember a story about two men who b*ght a lion cub from Harrods and raised it and then visited it in Kenya. Was that what you were thinking about?