(courtesy IMDb (c) Netflix)
When you have been alive for 100 years – happy birthday Sir David Attenborough once again! – and you’ve been filming for the greater part of that impressive lifespan, the odds are that there is more to find out about some of the memorable scenes you have filmed.
Case very much in point is a magical sequence that took place 48 years ago in the Virunga Mountains of Rwanda when the famed naturalist was filming Mountain Gorillas for the groundbreaking first Life on Earth series and a baby gorilla named Pablo came up without any self consciousness or fear at all and sprawled across Attenborough.
The scene was supposed to be the amazing evolutionary advantage of forefingers and opposable thumbs but instead, as Attenborough recalls in A Gorilla Story: Told by David Attenborough, it became quite beautifully about the power of connection and understanding with a fellow great ape.
There is more meaning and mutual understanding in exchanging a glance with a gorilla than with any other animal I know. (Sir David Attenborough)
As filmed moments of the natural world, it is right up there with the best, as is almost everything Attenborough has touched over his illustrious and passionate career, and it begged the question, at least as the makers of A Gorilla Story were concerned – where are gorillas who made up Pablo’s family now?
Known as the Pablo Group, this family of gorillas, like many of their species spread across the depleted mountain rainforests, are in a far better state they were 48 years ago when their collective numbers had dropped to somewhere around 250 individuals.
A parlous state for any species, and perilously close to being functionally extinct, this terrible state of gorilla affairs emboldened people within and without Rwanda, building on the pioneering work of the great Dian Fossey, to embark on a campaign to save the species, one which has worked spectacularly.
Proof of the power of this impressive conservation success are the fact that the numbers of Mountain Gorillas have more than doubled to 600-plus, and one of the healthiest families is the Pablo Group who are placed centre stage in this special which is part reminiscing but in a typical full speed ahead Attenborough, also a very contemporary state of affairs about one small but critically important corner of the natural world.
While A Gorilla Story does move fast in certain respects, cramming a lot of action into a 1.5 hour runtime, it never really feels rushed – this could be the mellifluous wonder that is Attenborough’s immediately recognisable voice, which manages to be calming and passionate all at once, or it could be simply that the special knows enough to simply let the gorillas tell their story.
Thankfully, the temptation to overly anthropomorphise the actions of the members of the Pablo Group is rejected, and while it is obvious that aspirational leader, young silverback male, Umbuzu is an aggressive soul and current leader Girucasi is a much gentler soul, in keeping with a leader in power for five years who has kept the peace in tandem with dominant female, Teta (interestingly while the silverbacks do the seizing of power thing, it’s only legitimised if the female gorilla in charge agrees; where she goes, goes the group) and so, the gorillas are largely left to let the machinations of their family play out in what feels like real time.
As a way of celebrating Attenborough’s 100th birthday, along with a slew of events and programs including a live concert on his birthday at London’s Albert Hall, A Gorilla Story is a gem, a program that updates a pivotal moment in the great man’s career while gives the man himself, and those of us who have watched a veritable feast of programs including Life on Earth, Blue Planet, Frozen Planet and Dynasties down through the years, a chance to muse on a career, and a particularly memorable moment in it, which has, and which continues to, celebrate the natural world while calling on us all, now with more urgency than ever, to do all we can to protect it.
A Gorilla Story: Told by David Attenborough streams on Netflix.
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