Koko: A Talking Gorilla Reviews

One of the risks you take in documentary filmmaking (specifically in "message" documentaries) is that your message might become outdated as humanity advances. The documentary Koko, a Talking Gorilla seems to fall right in this trap. It is, ostensibly, about a team of researchers and an amazing, sign language learning ape. These scenes - the always interesting, often bizarre sometimes unsettling interactions between humans and Koko the Gorilla are timelessly fascinating. Quite simply, Koko is one of the more remarkable characters in documentary history. Its when her handlers get involved that things become a bit muddled. Watching their approach to training Koko is fascinating but the film often takes extended breaks to philosophically wax about environmentalism and the Koko experiment representing man melding with nature while the evil zoo requests that Koko be returned so she can live with actual gorillas. The movie is problematic because it seems to approach its core relationship with a very biased lens. It does mention that Koko is getting a diet entirely unsuitable for a primate but never only really explores the surface of whether or not Koko's training is indeed good for Koko. Still, despite it underwhelming themes, it is a truly fascinating watch.

I really didn't find the title or the premise of Koko, a Talking Gorilla to be very intriguing going into it. But after seeing Barbet Schroeder's haunting General Idi Amin Dada: A Self Portrait several years ago, I was wanting to see something similar from him again. The subject matter is virtually the same as the previous documentary but this time a gorilla is the subject, a six-year old named Koko. Throughout the film she is paired with Penny Patterson, a graduate student in psychology and she constantly works at teaching Koko proper behaviour, various words and sign language. This may not sound like spectacular subject matter but Koko seems to have intelligence not seen in other apes and she is able to literally have two-way verbal communication with Penny. Of course Koko can't actually talk back but she can respond with sign language or actions to all of or most of Penny's commands and phrases, which makes it so fascinating to watch. And she seems to possess a self-awareness I don't think I have ever seen in another animal. She can tell that she is looking at herself in a mirror and she can even recognize herself on television. She also wears clothing, plays with dolls and can remember and recall previous experiences. There is even a moment in the film where Koko had just been glancing at a book and puts it down, then she goes back to it to find a particular page because it showed her favourite colour. She also sometimes behaves in the same mischievous manner a young child would, which understandably would seem to indicate at what level her intelligence is working at. By the end of the film it is argued that Koko is becoming too "humanized" for her own good and she thus would deem other gorillas to be inferior. But if communication can be established with another species, what could be wrong with that? It's almost as if she is bridging a gap that our two species started on tens of thousands of years ago, a gap that seems very small when watching her.