An interesting point to note is how there are so many interviewees who nurtured Nim for a particular period of time. In other words, other than Herb, the people appearing on the screen continuously change, implying how no more than one person actually had stayed with Nim for a long period of time. This displaying effect seems to imply how Project Nim was a complete failure in achieving its first goal of "raising Nim as if it were a real child." If the people had actually thought of Nim as a human baby or as a child of their own, they would not have turned their backs on Nim and left him to be cared for by a different person every time he caused trouble.
Herb, the only person who appears in the interviews all throughout the movie, was neither the warmest person toward Nim, nor had a strong will to finish the project. Rather, one would notice that he is constantly justifying himself for what he has done to Nim saying, “I never thought of him as my own child.” Even though he was the one who brought Nim into the scientific world for his experiment, this passive attitude of Herb is yet another interesting factor for the audience to catch as the audience will easily be able to understand the gap between his words and his actual attitude toward Nim.
▲ Project of Project Nim where Nim is holding out his hand to reach a human. Provided by cinedork.com |
People who are looking forward to knowing the capabilities of an animal to learn sign language should not watch this movie. This is not because Nim failed to learn any sign language or that there was nothing interesting about the learning process of the animal. Rather, the movie is about the dramatic life of the poor chimpanzee Nim who had been under the control of humans the moment he was born. The information about the development in Nim's linguistic abilities does not take much part in the whole story of the movie. Therefore, although the film successfully shows the environment in which an experiment is being conducted and how humans are numb to it, it fails to fulfill its intended task in showing the scientific outcomes of the project.
In other words, although the name of the movie is Project Nim, there seems to be no actual rule or teaching method that was properly established for it to be called as a meaningful project. Herb simply hires female teachers to teach Nim for some time before they leave. Such lack of rules was clearly emphasized in the movie to conduct the message that this was not a real project. Whether the director deliberately used the word project in the name or not, it is the audience’ job to determine whether Nim was in a scientific project to broaden human's perspectives on animal's language acquisition or merely a game to see how people can deal with a wild animal.
Film Information
Title: Project Nim (2011)
Running time: 94 minutes
Director: James Marsh
Release Date: 2011.7.8