Chimpanzee: The Movie

So finally a week after seeing Jane Goodall at Rollins College I got to see Chimpanzee, which Dr. Jane was promoting. Those of you who either know me or have read my work for awhile know that I'm a chimp girl...I wish I could just walk into the bush like Dr. Jane and sit and watch the chimps for a few years. They're amazing, riveting to watch, plus they don't talk. For someone who is so constantly surrounded by words that seems like an awesome oasis.

       Chimpanzee is as close as I'm likely to get to an adventure like that in the near future, so I'm glad I got to go and would go again. It's a documentary that managed to snare a remarkable storyline...(SPOILER ALERT) one of little Oscar, an orphaned chimp and the cutest baby of all time (sorry, everyone, but look at him) who is adopted by the most unlikely member of the troupe: the alpha male.

       The scenes these cameras capture is jaw-dropping especially of the way the apes strategize to win battles or to hunt monkeys  (seriously...it's like a football play) or comfort and teach each other. They're so stunningly like us: their dilemmas are just different, (like how to eat army ants without getting eaten by army ants).  Not only is it profoundly moving to get to see our cousins so closely, but the images of the rain forest. the storms, fruits, mushrooms, waterfalls and other animals are hypnotic in their alien beauty.

        So the movie is 100% worth seeing; unfortunately it's only about 75% worth hearing.

        One problem is Tim Allen as a narrator. Were there no Brits available to do this? Any Brit would have lent the movie more deserved dignity than Tim Allen doing his horrible arr-arr-arr caveman laugh (only once but still cringe-worthy) and The America's Funniest Home Video asides were unnecessary as well. The animals themselves are really enough and the blather is distracting. The music was as well...it really should have been a bit more John Williams or Echoes with John Diliberto and finally there were scenes, like plants that popped and emitted what looked like tear gas, that went unexplained. So there was chatter when you didn't want it and sometimes none when you did.

         Those few distracting points didn't get in the way of the fact that it's a breath-taking and even haunting movie. I keep thinking about little Oscar and, like Dr. Jane, could sit and watch him all day long, especially on the big screen where the beauty and power of his world is brought into sharp relief.
         Lucky me, though....my chimp watching gets to be done in the air conditioning.