I approached James Marsh's award-winning Man on Wire the same way. "Yeah, yeah, the guy who walked across the Twin Towers. There's a movie in that?" I thought I already knew what I needed to know about Nim Chimpsky, the chimpanzee taught sign language (maybe) by Columbia University professors. Marsh's documentary Project Nim goes way deeper than any 60 Minutes segment you may half-remember from your youth with a stranger-than-fiction narrative that exposes the unique, philosophical, emotionally devastating story of this primate's life.
With pure science intentions and a formidable-sized dash of ego, Professor Herb Terrace yanks a newborn chimp from his mother and puts him in the care of a wealthy, Earth mother hippie ex-student he used to schtup. There he will live in a Manhattan brownstone not unlike the one seen in Author, Author, raised as if he were an actual human baby. He is breast fed, he is nurtured, he lives indoors, he is taught rudimentary sign language. His primary caretaker is a wonderful piece of "New York in the '70s" work whose laissez-faire attitude might be a detriment to science.
Terrace then sets Nim up in a Riverdale, New York mansion with a striving 18 year old student (whom he's also schtupping) and his progress with sign language takes off. Nim makes the covers of magazines. Nim is a changed chimp. . .but it is this the right thing to do? After ups and downs (a growing Nim is a stronger, more dangerous Nim) and more women caretakers, Nim eventually finds himself. . .in hell.
It's around here when Project Nim glides from a social science story with 8mm clips into something unprecedented. It is a biopic of a stranger in a strange land, a Candide-like saga where an innocent who only wants to play with kittens is handed off from owner to owner, with his true friends unable to help. Nim runs afoul of the medical field, the court system, animal rights activists, even a Grateful Dead fan. There are highs (literally - Nim loves to smoke dope! And there are pictures!) and there are lows (Nim basically has his "I'm not one of your fans!" moment from Mommie Dearest.)
Project Nim certainly tugs on the heartstrings - I wasn't kidding when I said he likes to play with kittens - but the movie earns it because the story is so unique. The film is also very well shot, with effective lighting during the talking head moments and riveting music. I can't imagine anyone not being riveted by this movie but, delightfully, there is room for argument. Medical testing on animals is horrifying up close, but if it leads to a cure for cancer is it not the right decision? Is Nim's life a tragedy, or did he experience a consciousness higher than other primates? Did Nim not truly live, while other chimps just ate bananas? Where is the ethical line for social science experiments? And what would have been a better name for this film: The Stanford Monkey Experiment or Flowers For Chimpernon?
As a science-fiction nut and a kid who spent sleepless nights convinced aliens were invading any minute, I couldn't help but wonder what it will be like when the species one step up from us decides, even with the best scientific intentions, to experiment on us. Project Nim is rich enough to get your head moving that way, until you decide that, yes, you too would rather just play with kittens.
