Dwight Dekeyser rating: ZZZ
Dear Friend:
It was Oscar night and there was nothing showing I wanted to see. I had never reviewed a documentary before, so I thought I would live dangerously and take a walk on the wild side and review this coquettish-sounding documentary about an “octogenarian” orangutan called Nénette. (Actually, she was only 40, about five years past her life expectancy.) It was not as if I were expecting Nana (1880) by Emile Zola, but I was expecting something more than this excruciating excursion to this abysmal French apiary. No, I am not talking about Paris! I am talking about the Menagerie du Jardin des Plantes. The zoo which, according to some accounts, was once a dreadful place with small cages, rusty wire over the terrarium, and smelled like an open sewer. Quel charme!
As you can imagine, the history of French zoo keeping has not always been pretty. According to The Divine Sarah, food was so scarce during the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), Parisians resorted to eating their exotic exhibits. Things have improved since the fall of the Second Empire. In the 1980s, the Jardin des Plantes was rehabilitated into a respectable zoo worthy of the City of Lights and La Belle France. However, that was some time after Nénette’s arrival, circa 1968. But this is ancient history, except for the poor girl’s petit appartement, which is not anyone’s idea of the Ritz. (Perhaps, Mr. Fayed might have some suggestions for a changer de décor.) In fact, one observer remarked her lack of space was most probably a result of the high rents in Paris – competition even Darwin could not have contemplated.
Watching this documentary had all the excitement of watching (Jacques Cousteau would agree) a home aquarium. Yes, it’s very pleasant for a few moments, but not for 70 minutes. Orangutans are not mischievous monkeys or majestic mountain gorillas. No, they are the sloths of the ape world. The sheer inertia of these magnificent orange oafs was oppressive. They are a species that would try the patience of Jane Goodall. They hardly move at all and almost never utter a noise – sort of like tropical fish. Except these fish look like us, and there’s the fascination. We look like them, they look like us. We stare at them, they stare at us – except they don’t talk. In many ways this movie was like visiting a nursing home for the aged or mentally retarded. You know they’re human – "there's just no there there," to quote Gertrude Stein. At some point it became clear to me that this wildlife documentary was actually a captivity documentary, a sort of inaction film and that that I was just another captive ape with nothing to do but stare back at the screen until I was released by my theater handlers. At least, they got complementary yogurt and a jug of tea, which I discovered is just as easily unscrewed with one's lips as one's hands in Orangutan-land.
The cinematography, if you could call it that, was unimpressive. It was deliberately minimalistic. It was one camera focusing on an animal, usually straight-on and in extreme close-up. It felt as if one were in a relentless starring contest with a bored depressed catatonic creature that would not make eye contact. There was no Desi Arnaz three-camera simultaneous shooting here. It was more like The Honeymooners (1951—55) single camera “keep the camera on Jackie” approach, except this Jackie never moved, but for her eyes from side to side. It was almost like watching Andy Warhol's Empire (1964), eight hours and five minutes of continuous slow motion footage of the Empire State Building. It was absolutely the most unimaginative and frankly lazy approach to film making I have ever seen. It was shooting fish in a barrel.
Visitors to the exhibit were heard but not seen. The subtitles came fast and furious. (At least the movie was good French practice.) Some of the children were very funny. One insisted that Nénette and his father were not the same age, his father was 40 and a half. A zoo keeper said if the glass ever broke between the orangutans and the humans, it would be “run for your life.” Now, that would have been a movie! I can just see a band of orange apes terrorizing Paris, climbing the Eiffel Tower, invading the Louvre, and commanding the cat-walk on Fashion Week. But, as we now know, that would be out of character for our furry fellows. They would be much more likely to be smugly ensconced in the front row between Anna Wintour and André Leon Talley at the Chanel show. No faux fur for these guys.
Here is the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INjYL3M_WF4
From the vault: Any Which Way but Loose (1978), directed by James Fargo; starring Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, and Geoffrey Lewis. I have never seen this movie. I have no idea what it’s about. I do know that it has an orangutan in it. Maybe this one knows some tricks.
Best of luck in your movie selections. Your faithful friend,
Dwight Dekeyser
© 2011 Dwight Dekeyser, Esq. All rights reserved.
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