Project Nim

Nim gives a lesson in human arrogance
I remember the first time I held a chimp's hand. The first touch between human and ape fingers establishes a connection, and you never forget the soft leathery feel of a chimpanzee's palm. What should be an ordinary sensation is not. It is unforgettable and forever.

The problem arises when the chimp-human connection becomes subject to human arrogance, sometimes cloaked in love, other times defined by science, and often supported by stupidity.

Project Nim is the true story of a chimpanzee who was taken from his mother to participate in a 1970s university research project on communications. The movie has all three components: love, science, and stupidity, all adding up to a level of human arrogance that is almost incomprehensible.

Nim's story begins at an Oklahoma primate research project, when the mother chimpanzee, Carolyn, is shot with a tranquilizer so the research director can grab Carolyn's sixth newborn, Nim, as they stole all the others. Nim goes...

Utterly Engaging, Unbearably Tragic
About half way through the fascinating, absorbing and unsettling PROJECT NIM, a tear-stained former female caretaker of the chimp looks right into the camera and states "Shame on us." That sense of shame at humanity's awesome hubris is just one of several very strong emotions that filmmaker James Marsh effectively evokes in a film that asks some very big questions, even as it moves and breaks your heart.

Poor Nim. From the day he was torn from his mother's devastated arms, he was unwittingly entwined with human machinations he could never understand nor hope to escape. For an animal lover, it's hard to watch his tragedy unfold, yet also impossible not to watch its moments of sheer joy and revelation; and impossible not to want to comprehend what happened and what it all meant . . . for us, for science and for Nim.

Some might take issue with Marsh's playful directing, which fuses some rather graphic and overtly dramatic recreations with real documentary...

For a wide audience
Project Nim is a fascinating video comprised from wonderfully logged archives of videos, along with more recent interviews from his caretakers: past and present. It's a great documentary that you don't need to be a naturalist or linguist to enjoy. I enjoyed the "science" from the film, my 9 year old daughter felt the story, and my wife felt so bad for Nim she could barely watch - but did so with great interest. A couple of days later we still find ourselves discussing Nim in the household.

This resource would be a great one for a range of classes, in various educational settings, from kindergarten to graduate school.

The story of Nim, as revealed here, will engaged the viewer with questions: from the nature of language, to the linguistic capacities of "other animals", along with the humane treatment of subjects used in clinical and experimental research. I appreciate the honesty put forth in the documentary as there are aspects of Nim's treatment that will...

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