MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Mountain’: Intimate Look at Gorillas In and Out of the Mist

The world often destroys or misperceives beauty. Art can sometimes reclaim it. And so, less often, can movies.

In “Mountain Gorilla” (IMAX Theater), some dedicated and talented filmmakers, using the technically awesome IMAX camera process, have recorded the intimate lifestyle of the mountain gorillas of the Virunga range in Africa’s Rwanda: the same gorillas whom Dian Fossey lived among at the Karisoke Research Station, and who inspired the bio-movie “Gorillas in the Mist.”

Nature documentaries, of course--including the masterpieces of Robert Flaherty, Arne Sucksdorff and, more recently, Stefan Jarl--often live or die specifically on the quality of their cinematography. And, in “Mountain Gorilla” the IMAX process (handled by cinematographer Neil Rettig), with its unprecedented sweep and depth, its vast screen-size and razor-sharp clarity, once again elevates a simple-sounding subject to unique, often breath-taking visual grandeur.

IMAX brings us up close and in tight. At startling proximity, we see the apes and their rubbery, dark, strangely sober-looking faces; the hirsute coats; the graceful, four-limbed lope; the formidable crunch as these amiable vegetarians chew into their main diet of bamboo, nettles and wild celery, snapping branches with ease. We see mothers tenderly and carefully cradling their young, salty young bucks swaggering before unimpressed females, a dramatic and surprising duel for control of the pack, and a whole gorilla community bedding down together in the tall grass or patiently waiting out a thunderstorm, coats drenched.

Around them, the towering corona of the Virunga Mountains, robed in mist, and the deep and burningly green forests, plangent with jungle noises, form a spectacular backdrop.

Because of their roles in “Gorillas in the Mist”--and also in “Gorillas in the Midst of Man,” another documentary shot by this film’s director, Adrian Warren--the apes look familiar. Indeed, one of two simian pack leaders we see here is Mrithi, the same silverback honcho who starred with Sigourney Weaver in “Gorillas in the Mist”--and whom, we learn, was killed shortly after the IMAX filming.

The cause of his death: a rebel bullet, part of the savage, internecine human warfare in the area, which now threatens this dwindling little band--perhaps the last 200 or so of them on Earth. Careful husbanding protection over several decades, by Fossey and others--including Fossey’s predecessor, George Schaller, whom we see at the beginning--stabilized the mountain gorilla population. Now, extinction, by the end of this decade, is a real possibility.

All the more reason then, for audiences, to take in the latest IMAX documentary: first in a new partnership with the National Geographic Society. It has gorgeous sights and sounds: the rich imagery and visuals of all the best IMAX documentaries, backed with a evocative percussion soundtrack by John Wyre and the international group Buka.

Most of all, “Mountain Gorilla” (Times rated: Family) has the gorillas, for the time we see them here, still strong, well and living together amicably. That existence is what the vagaries of war, the violence and ignorance of mankind, can take away--and what IMAX, for a precious and absorbing 40 minutes, gives back to us.

‘Mountain Gorilla’

An IMAX Corporation Natural History Film Unit/National Geographic Society presentation of a National Geographic IMAX experience. Director Adrian Warren. Producer Sally Dundas. Executive producer Christopher Parsons, Andre Picard. Screenplay by Steve Lucas. Cinematographer Neil Rettig. Editor/post production co-director Barbara Kerr. Music John Wyre. Art director Jordan Craig. Zoological adviser Craig Sholley. Sound Christopher West. Narrator Rebecca Jenkins. Running time: 40 minutes.

Times-rated: Family.