Gorillas in the Mist 1988
Starring Sigourney Weaver
This is one of my top 5 favorite movies! It will make you smile, laugh, cry, wonder, and love. Weaver is the perfect person to portray the real life person this movie is based on: Dian Fossey. Thanks to her, the mountain gorillas multiplied and were kept safer in the African Congo:
Dian, a physical therapist, attended the lecture of Dr. Leakey and implored him to let her go to Africa to continue the census work of the mountain gorillas. He met her there and left her there, much to her surprise! Oh and by the way, there was a Civil War going on. Minor detail…
She and her tracker, Sembagare, were in the rainforest looking for gorillas, hiking for hours.
She was following him and finally she realized he didn’t know how to track gorillas. He said he was waiting for her to guide him! They learned together.
One night she was practicing gorillas sounds and movements in her cabin when Bob Campbell walked in. He was sent from the National Geographic to take pictures. She wasn’t exactly happy but eventually they fell in love on that mountain. He took pictures and film of her with the gorillas:
Herein lies my favorite scene where she laid down, putting her hand out, and Digit put his hand in hers:
Bob leaves for other work and returns with a dog and a tub. They watch the film he has taken and she doesn’t understand why she is in the film so much. He explains that people are fascinated with her. She asks, “Do you think I’m weird?” He replies, “Weird and wonderful.” Later he wants her to marry him and to spend 6 months on the mountain and 6 months somewhere warm but she can’t because, “The gorillas are here.” She chooses them over Bob. As he leaves she tells him, “If you go, don’t write. Please don’t go.” But he does and she sits with the gorillas in the rain crying.
Five years later…
Research students come to the mountain but she isn’t thrilled with this. She considers it HER mountain and HER gorillas. I get that. Later she says of them, “Me-itis. Let’s go.” One student asks to be taken away from Digit’s group to see another and it is during this time that the most horrifying scene occurs: Digit is killed by poachers while he tries to protect his group. Dian finds him headless and handless. Dian captured one of the poachers and made him think he wound be hanged. Then she burnt their huts. She made a lot of enemies. Later she and Sembagare are together and she breaks down. It’s a heartbreaking scene.
After Dian recovers she visits Digit’s group and finds a new baby member with 4th and 5th digits webbed, Digits’ baby, “I know you” and Digit lives on.
One night she is smoking (as always), having a drink, listening to music and looking at her gorilla photos. Next thing you know, she’s asleep and we see in a shadow someone bringing a machete down on her. She was murdered December 27, 1985 by an unseen assailant at age 53. At her funeral she was buried next to Digit. The rocks around their graves are connected in order to keep their souls together. I have done the same for my 2 beloved cats buried my backyard.
Without Dian Fossey the mountain gorillas wouldn’t be alive and thriving as well as they are although they are still a very endangered species.
Trivia Time:
- The producer was hours away from contacting Dian to meet with her about the movie and she was murdered.
- Much of the shoot took place at her Karisoke research center. The crew had to hike 12,000 feet above sea level to the site traveling through mud and think vegetation.
- Weaver wore an earpiece in order to get close to the gorillas during filming.
- She too used the gestures that Fossey had and was able to get very close to them.
- Some of the gorilla footage of injured animals were actors in suits created by Rick Baker.
Enjoy the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdpcWkv8ohk
Dian was a very strange woman and next time when I review her book with you we’ll look into that.
Book and Movie Therapy 