James Marsh’s latest documentary is about the adorable Nim Chimpsky, who in 1973 was taken away from his mother, in an
Like Marsh’s Oscar-winning ‘Man on Wire’, the film uses lots of archived video as well as some studio recreations to really make the story come alive, but unlike that film, here the subject matter is a lot more dark. It brings up serious questions about ethics – should we use animals for research like this, and later, there is some pretty gnarly animal testing footage. It’s a scary tale, not as cute as the picture of Nim in that red sweater would suggest, and none of the personalities have the same energy and charisma of Wire's Philippe Petit, so the heavy atmosphere never really lifts. There are some fascinating insights – the chimp would use the sign for “Dirty” to go and use the bathroom, as means of getting out of doing boring class work; chimps in the animal sanctuary would have to do chores like yard work and cleaning, making it even more like a prison – but I think that someone else at the press screening said it best when they called it a science horror film.