Review of Project Nim (2011) by Joshua B — 11 Jan 2013

Project Nim, James Marsh's follow up to his critically acclaimed documentary, Man on Wire, is a masterful work of filmmaking that uses the story of one animal to tell us the story about the nature of humanity. Nim Chimpsky was the subject of a landmark psychology experiment in the 1970s, the aim of which was to determine whether an ape raised with a human family could effectively learn human communication. Marsh's through, emotionally-complex examination of the people and events surrounding Nim's life is the stuff of a good Greek tragedy. There are humans who fall naturally into the roles of the progress-hungry scientists who put knowledge over ethics and those whose primary concern is Nim's well-being. Due to changes in Nim's own behaviour as he grows older -- spoiler alert: you can't raise a chimp in a New York apartment -- he is passed around to various caregivers who all have somewhat of a different take on how best to interact with him. Marsh shoots it like a really good child custody drama, but without feeling like he is making a spectacle of real events. Ultimately, Nim's story tells us about the nature of animals, but more importantly, about the nature of humans who are foolish enough to try to control them. Project Nim is the best documentary of 2011.

Interestingly enough, this film shares a lot of thematic considerations with another, very structurally different but also very entertaining, film that came out this year: Rise of the Planet of the Apes. There is a great double feature.