Project Nim [DVD]

********CONTAINS SPOILERS********

"Project Nim" is one of those documentaries that is both deeply fascinating and horrifying at the same time. The manipulative Homo sapiens do not come out of this film in a very good light. In fact by the end you feel a sense of shame for the way in which one chimpanzees innocence was stolen from him at birth. The 70s experiment to locate a baby chimp into a human family to see if it could be taught to communicate by sign language was dreamed up by Columbia Universities Herb Terrace. This esteemed professor seemed more interested in the attractive young women employed on the project rather than the work itself. Baby chimp Nim is cruelly taken from his mother and located to an ex student of Terrace's whom he had also spookily enough had an affair with. But rather than pick a normal family poor old Nim gets to live with a lot of free thinking wacky baccy smoking hippies. This lot would unhinge any normal child let alone an impressionable chimp. Things start to go wrong quickly. We then watch Nim passed from one person to another. One minute he is eating yogurt and granola for breakfast, and the next he is in a cage with the usual chimp zoo diet.

This was one experiment that was doomed from the start. Anyone who watches wildlife documentaries will know that Chimpanzees are incredibly strong and aggressive animals. A bite from one of these can do serious damage, as many a zookeeper has reason to know. Out in the jungle it is a case of kill or be killed! They are not the cuddly little cutesies from the tea adverts! You can take the chimp from the jungle, but you can't take the jungle out of the chimp! Having said all that they are also very intelligent animals, as Nim shows with his rapid development in sign language. It is not long before someone inevitably gets badly bitten. Characters flit in and out of Nim's life. He develops a bond with someone and they suddenly disappear off the scene. This becomes confusing and clearly psychologically damaging to Nim. One disturbing character, who resembles Dr Mengele, appears working for a drug company in what is the most upsetting part of the film. There can be no happy ending of course. The damage is done when the chimpanzees first come into human contact. The aim of the documentary was clearly to paint humans in a poor light, but there are some who show we are not all bad. One woman sheds tears at Nim's treatment, and one man worked tirelessly on Nim's behalf, showing a deep affection for him that went far beyond the call of duty. One would like to think that in this more enlightened age such things could not happen, but that would of course be rather naive. A documentary that certainly makes you pause for thought and is well worth watching.

I'll watch any film by James Marsh. I loved Man on Wire, and this film is very similar in structure and style. Fairly quickly you got a sense that it was all going to go horribly wrong. The fact that it happened at all is quite puzzling. It says a lot about 70s hippies and their new but ultimately misguided ideals.

I watched all the extras and got half way through a second viewing. Having gone to boarding school, I could relate to Nim's separation anxiety. I also think the need to assert authority is shared by both humans and chimpanzees.

The footage is extraordinary. I never realised such a thing had ever been tried. James Marsh has told another gripping story which everyone should see.

Thought-provoking, funny (esp. the bit involving 2 researchers and a kitten...) and at times devastatingly sad (re man's inanimality to animals - not sure why we say inhumanity!), I found this film incredibly interesting, have seen it twice so far will watch again.