See It: Gorilla Murders!

June 30, 2008 by Lex  Send to a Friend

Can I just say that when I first heard of the upcoming Nat Geo film, Gorilla Murders, I read it as a noun & a verb–not as a descriptive plural noun? So when I get the email invite from the kind Miss Julie Frazier I instantly have visions of King Kong picking up buildings and eating them dance through my head. Obviously, after scoping the mircos of it, relief was heightened and I became much more excited to see the world premier of this breathtaking film.

It all went down at the Nat Geo hindquarters of the headquarters last Thursday eve at 7pm. I nestled into my movie chair around 7:15, after an unintentional camera-lens-hitting domino effect on the back of a few heads walking through the pitch black aisle. Not sure if peeps got mad about it but hopefully they can appreciate that it’s all in love. The film, and Miss Alexandra Verville can tell you better than I can, is a wonderfully documented tour orchestrated by Nat Geo journalists in search for the killers of the six slain mountain gorillas captured in still form via photographer Brent Stirton last summer in Virunga National Park. These photographs acted as a jumbo highlighter on the problems that face the Park and surrounding areas, which inevitably forces outsiders like ourselves to really see, sans rose-colored glasses.

As the beautiful green mountainous landscape of Virunga park unrolls toward you like a red-gone-green carpet, it instantly begins to introduce to the you the equally unbeautiful, the rocky roads, the trouble spots. The harm facing the gorillas and population is there in a big way–a hard to interpret scale. It is a highly informative but sometimes blurry 50 minute roller coaster ride–the ride sometimes taking turns into visions of vast and smoldering illegal charcoal burning huts, or the crying hungry families having illegal charcoal wisked away after a month’s worth of savings, or still images of the immense slaughter of people as border wars in Africa remain on the fritz. The major film players are persons from groups such as the team of rangers in Virunga, which are highly detailed and respected in the film, as well as others, some suspected to be involved in the charcoal trade, including rebel forces. All of these players are involved in this massive chess-like game that controls sides and attacks and removes players, and even strategizes tactics, such as the gorilla murders, to better oneself. A hard to follow game but extremely revealing and heart wrenching one at that.

You can see for yourself, tomorrow!

The panel discussion, which was after the film but before the reception [good move Nat Geo!], was brutally honest and even more eye-awakening than the film, that and more–Godefroid Wambale, a Warden in Virunga National Park, was there in flesh. We’re basically best friends now.

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