Typically horrifying Frederick Wiseman documentary about experiments at a primate research laboratory where chimps and apes and monkeys are subjected to bizarre and inhumane testing. Wiseman (probably the greatest documentary filmmaker who ever lived) is something of a magician when it comes to snagging jaw-dropping "moments" that will have squeamish viewers quickly reaching for the remote. Much footage here (as with many of Wiseman's films) still would be censored from most cable programs.
We get to see these poor creatures subjected to intelligence tests, gravity tests, muscle stimulation tests, and (bafflingly) a veritable thesaurus of sexual function/dysfuction tests. A few talking head interviews with the researchers as they babble loftily and (at times) incoherently. Part of the genius of Frederick Wiseman is his gift for showing things from beginning to end, undiluted to spare the audience's feelings. One sequence shows a small, very confused monkey being taken from its cage and strapped into what can only be described as a tiny version of an inquisition rack then wheeled through a series of rooms, only to be (literally) sliced and diced and cracked into tiny pieces then stuffed into a dozen jars by a guy who speaks to the camera with the blase attitude of a man chopping carrots. Wiseman's camera doesn't even leer at this. I've seen some graphic mondo footage but I was unable to view this sequence and had to cover my eyes. Truly, almost as nauseating as the torture inflicted on the primates is the desensitized nature of the hippie scientists doing the testing. Scene after scene unfolds with chimps and monkeys being flayed and sent through living hell as the researchers act with minds that seem curiously elsewhere and detached. It makes one wonder if working at such a place for too long would engender this kind of thinking.
As another reviewer noted, Wiseman's camera is "absent" but certainly not unbiased. This film is a scream of rage at the establishment firmly rooted in the counter-culture born of the 1960s.
