Project Nim, a new film about a chimpanzee who was raised like a facsimile of a human child, is one of just a few movies that are in the coveted position of opening at Sundance. Though I haven’t seen the film (yet), it looks like one to keep an eye out for. According to the description, “What we learn about Nim’s true nature — and indeed our own — is comic, revealing, and profoundly unsettling.”
You had me at “profoundly unsettling.” Though it’s easy to point out that any kind of experiment on an animal is inherently exploitative — even the socializing ones that are not otherwise “cruel” — Project Nim will, hopefully, explore these often contentious issues in a thoughtful and meaningful way, and possibly open people’s eyes to the sentience and awesomeness of animals. I am, of course, deeply unsettled by the fact that Nim’s third cousins are likely the victims of zoos, animal testing, or bushmeat. For some inexplicable reason, Nim won what his human captors probably considered to be the chimpanzee lottery. But it sounds like the film may explore some of the reasons why that may not be the case, since a chimpanzee should really be in the wild, raised as a chimpanzee child, not a human child. Shocking, I know…
Project Nim Opens at Sundance
Another film to keep an eye out for is The Legend of Pale Male, which is in limited release throughout the country. It’s the story of a wild Redtail hawk — a predator that has not lived in a city for about a hundred years. Yet, to the surprise of millions of onlookers, he finds a new home in the Big Apple… just in time for dirty humans to destroy his nest. Why am I not surprised?
Though I haven’t yet seen either of these documentaries (I stupidly missed the New York City release of Pale Male, thanks to holiday mayhem), I’m hoping that they will be two more tools we can use to show people who wouldn’t otherwise notice how completely brilliant animals are, and how backwards and horrific it is to exploit and consume them. Ah, the power of film…