DUBAI: Almost 50 years ago, the now-almost-100-year-old broadcaster and natural historian David Attenborough and his team shot one of the most famous sequences in documentary history: an encounter with a family of gorillas in Rwanda who allowed Attenborough to approach them, whereupon the smallest of them, Pablo, proceeded to clamber all over him, to the obvious delight of the celebrated presenter, who then famously pronounced: “There is more meaning and mutual understanding in exchanging a glance with a gorilla than with any other animal I know.”
In “A Gorilla Story: Told by David Attenborough,” we learn that Pablo grew up to become the leader of his own group of gorillas; making it into his thirties before he died. And we meet the present-day Pablo Group, including ageing leader Gicurasi (who was an infant when Pablo passed away); the dominant female, Tete; the aggressive teen Ubwuzu; a younger teen, Imfura, whom Ubwuzu bullies relentlessly; and playful two-year-old Ubi.
In filmmaking terms, it’s a marvel — close-ups so intense that adrenaline kicks in; panoramic sweeps of lush landscapes; and moments of interaction so rarely seen that they take your breath away.
It’s risky, of course, to anthropomorphize the animals in a nature documentary. But “A Gorilla Story” clarifies how much our two species have in common. How can one view the group’s females coming together to console a young mother whose first baby has just been killed as anything other than a deeply moving display of sympathy and care? And when Gicurasi steps aside and recognizes Ubwuzu as the dominant male, it’s hard not to see him as having the wisdom to know cooperation and compromise are not the same thing as cowardice.
This is a documentary aimed at all the family — the most violent action takes place off-camera and the tone is mostly upbeat and optimistic. There is reason for that: Rwanda’s gorillas had been poached almost to extinction. Today, their numbers are almost entirely recovered.
But, as with any Attenborough project nowadays, there’s a bittersweetness here too. How many more times will we get to have this extraordinary man explain extraordinary things to us? At a time when empathy and expertise are increasingly undervalued, it’s a joy to spend time in the company of someone who has bucketloads of both.
