TWO films, in which chimpanzees are the main characters, are being shown in Irish cinemas.
They have broadly similar plots and both have been praised by the critics.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a science-fiction offering. In it, a San Francisco-based micro-biologist seeks a cure for his father’s Alzheimer problem. A genetically engineered virus which he injects into a chimpanzee transforms the animal’s mental abilities. Following a violent outburst, the chimp is put down but leaves a baby behind which the scientist raises at home as though it were a child.
The chimp’s intelligence continues to grow, so the scientist gives the wonder drug to his increasingly senile father, who makes a spectacular recovery. Then, things go awry. Following a violent outburst, the chimp is incarcerated in a Draconian institution for abandoned primates. He becomes ring-leader of the apes there, organises a prison breakout and leads the inmates on a rampage. The final confrontation between men and beasts takes place on the Golden Gate Bridge.
The stuntmen dressed as chimps are convincing, although their bottoms are covered in fur; the ugly pink rear ends of actual chimps haven’t much box office appeal. Nor, given their physiology, could a chimp ever speak, irrespective of how bright it might become. The bridge is a potent civilisation-versus-Nature metaphor, linking the sky-scrapers of San Francisco and the giant redwoods of John Muir Park (named after the 19th century naturalist and writer) to the north.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes is an entertaining concoction which makes few demands on the viewer. We mess around with Nature at our peril, it warns. This film will appeal to the ‘Tea-Party’ mind-set.
Project Nim, the second chimp film, is a horse, or rather an ape, of a different colour. In 1974, a baby chimp was raised as a member of a human family. The instigator of this experiment believed that chimps could be taught to construct sentences using sign language. He hoped to establish a channel of communication between humans and animals. ‘Nim Chimsky’ is a pun on ‘Noam Chomsky’; the great cognitive scientist-philosopher argues language is found only in humans.
The experiment went well initially. That people and chimps have much in common is not surprising; these are, after all, our nearest animal relatives. Nim’s human side was duly nurtured but his animal side remained. As he grew in size and strength, tantrums became an increasing problem. A pet dog was killed, researchers were badly bitten and the experiment ceased. Nim was removed to a medical testing facility where primates are used as guinea pigs. When animal welfare enthusiasts complained on his behalf, he was moved from one depressing incarceration to another. Chimps are social animals but Nim ended up all alone in a horse and donkey sanctuary, run by well intentioned, but hopelessly misguided, animal lovers. Eventually, some female chimps were procured to cheer him up. He died of a heart attack on March 10, 2000.
The people who lived and worked with Nim are interviewed face to camera. No holds are barred; even aspects of the participants’ private lives are examined where these might have influenced their behaviour. The interviewees are extraordinarily frank. The vet in charge of the medical testing facility goes so far as to declare that such institutions are not, and never can be, humane. Yet he continued working there. Herbert Terrace, instigator of the project, concedes in hindsight that he had been wrong about practically everything to do with the experiment. Chimps, for all their skill with shapes and letters, he now believes, can’t master human language even at a very primitive level.
This insightful documentary is unflinching in its treatment of both animals and humans. However, it won’t draw the crowds — there were only five people in the theatre when I watched it.
a d v e r t i s e m e n t
This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Monday, August 29, 2011
