Review of Project Nim (2011) by Danny B — 19 Jul 2011

James Marsh who directed Man on Wire, the 2008 Academy Award winner for Best Documentary, turns his attention to a study in which a baby chimpanzee was raised and nurtured like a human child. Conducted by Herbert S. Terrace, professor of psychology at Columbia University in the early 1970s, the thesis was predicated on the belief that a monkey brought up in this way, could be taught to use American Sign Language as a means to communicate. This then would shed light on the way a vocabulary is acquired and used by individuals. The simian was named Nim Chimpsky, a pun on Noam Chomsky, the celebrated linguist who did not hold these beliefs. Chomsky believed only humans develop language in this fashion.

Based on Elizabeth Hess's book, Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human, Project Nim is a well presented, but unsettling and thoroughly depressing story. The way the events unfold can be infuriating to behold. It's much deeper than I expected. This is not some sentimental reminiscence concerning a cute chimp. It takes a surprisingly atypical point of view. The documentary goes to great lengths not to misrepresent Nim as human and moreover doesn't push the humans as barbarians either. I admire that level of impartiality. Yet I wanted to be more emotionally invested in this story. Make no mistake, it made me profoundly sad. It was an admittedly affecting chronicle of an experiment gone wrong. But it's distressing when the monkey shows more humanity than the people.