James Marsh's 2008 Man On Wire: compelling documentary footage from the 1970s cut with here-they-are-now talking heads. Beautifully shot and put together. Massive WTF factor.
Philippe Petit took on the full weight of both gravity and the law in a series of sanity-defying tightrope walks culminating in, or rather between, the Twin Towers. Man On Wire (title from his NYPD charge sheet) explored the relationship between art, dedication, logistics, terror, bravado, charm and getting away with it. Accompanying WTF themes were Petit's glorious English and his relationships, both of which were jaw-dropping. You leave the cinema reeling.
James Marsh's 2010 Project Nim: compelling documentary footage from the 1970s cut with here-they-are-now talking heads. Beautifully shot and put together. Massive WTF factor.
Petit is here replaced by Nim Chimpsky, reared from a baby (that's a baby chimpanzee) by a hippie family under the auspices of University of Columbia linguistics professor Dr Herbert Terrace. Nim's pretty soon removed from the influence of hippies and then plunged into an ever-ghastlier series of environments which make being given spliffs and encouraged to explore Earth Mom's bodily bits seem, if not entirely sensible, at least benign by comparison. It seems an unsurprising fable about man's inhumanity to anthropomorphically-enhanced chimp-child (who is more humane and a damn sight cuter than we are, of course). Or is he? Project Nim's WTF factor doesn't lie in Nim himself. You catch yourself, against your will, trying to construct a personality for him out of what Marsh gives you, but that's ultimately about as deep as the exploration of being human as opposed to being an animal, and the role that language plays in that, goes. Project Nim's WTF factor lies in Dr Herb's remarkable unlikeability and his team of kid assistants' extraordinary naiveté, and that was never going to make Marsh's second outing as uplifting and mind-expanding as his first.
Philippe Petit took on the full weight of both gravity and the law in a series of sanity-defying tightrope walks culminating in, or rather between, the Twin Towers. Man On Wire (title from his NYPD charge sheet) explored the relationship between art, dedication, logistics, terror, bravado, charm and getting away with it. Accompanying WTF themes were Petit's glorious English and his relationships, both of which were jaw-dropping. You leave the cinema reeling.
James Marsh's 2010 Project Nim: compelling documentary footage from the 1970s cut with here-they-are-now talking heads. Beautifully shot and put together. Massive WTF factor.
Petit is here replaced by Nim Chimpsky, reared from a baby (that's a baby chimpanzee) by a hippie family under the auspices of University of Columbia linguistics professor Dr Herbert Terrace. Nim's pretty soon removed from the influence of hippies and then plunged into an ever-ghastlier series of environments which make being given spliffs and encouraged to explore Earth Mom's bodily bits seem, if not entirely sensible, at least benign by comparison. It seems an unsurprising fable about man's inhumanity to anthropomorphically-enhanced chimp-child (who is more humane and a damn sight cuter than we are, of course). Or is he? Project Nim's WTF factor doesn't lie in Nim himself. You catch yourself, against your will, trying to construct a personality for him out of what Marsh gives you, but that's ultimately about as deep as the exploration of being human as opposed to being an animal, and the role that language plays in that, goes. Project Nim's WTF factor lies in Dr Herb's remarkable unlikeability and his team of kid assistants' extraordinary naiveté, and that was never going to make Marsh's second outing as uplifting and mind-expanding as his first.
