Reel Rundown: Narrator David Attenborough sets ‘A Gorilla Story’ apart from traditional nature documentaries
When it comes to being a television presenter, having a good voice is paramount. And by good I mean being able to express a pleasant tone, effective timbre and – maybe most important – a sense of authority.
David Attenborough possesses all three, more or less. His voice is high-pitched and at times it sounds a bit strained, but he has a good excuse. He is, after all, a full 100 years old.
Regardless, Attenborough’s main strength fulfills that third requirement. Known widely for his association with the BBC/Discovery Channel series “Blue Planet,” he has been a well-established spokesman for various nature programs since 1954.
That long-standing association with all things nature-oriented is what gives credibility to the Netflix documentary feature film “A Gorilla Story: Told by David Attenborough.”
Co-directed by James Reed and Callum Webster, “A Gorilla Story” tells the tale of Attenborough’s relationship with a band of mountain gorillas in Rwanda. He first encountered the so-called Pablo Group, named after one of the band’s lead males, in 1978. He and a film crew were in the African country to film an episode for the BBC series “Life on Earth.”
During that visit, while Attenborough was attempting to explain various aspects of gorilla anatomy, he found himself being embraced by a young male gorilla – the same gorilla who would become known as Pablo. Attenborough famously forgot what he’d planned to say and just enjoyed the magic of the moment.
Five decades later, the BBC’s cameras returned to Rwanda’s Virunga Mountains where they discovered a different situation. When Attenborough first visited, the mountain gorillas were being threatened by poachers to the point where barely 250 of them were left. These days, through international conservation efforts, that number has grown to some 600.
As “A Gorilla Story” shows, this growth has been due largely through the efforts made by such individuals as the late Dian Fossey, whose work studying the gorillas helped draw attention to their plight. Fossey’s story was dramatized in the 1988 film “Gorillas in the Mist.”
The Rwandan government itself has worked to protect the gorillas, complementing the efforts of a number of international organizations. Programs such as those produced by Attenborough and the BBC have helped as well.
“A Gorilla Story” follows some of the basic plots of typical nature programming. While following the Pablo Group, the show’s producers identify the leader (Gicurasi), the dominant female (Teta), the upstart who wants to take over (Ubwuzu) and the male adolescent whose presence becomes troubling to all involved (Imfura).
As the show follows the individual characters, the producers provide a narrative full of dramatic sequences. And the overall mood is influenced by a musical score set to reflect the changing situations. None of this is surprising because even the best nature programs tend to indulge in anthropomorphism, which is the tendency to ascribe human behavior to the animals we encounter.
It’s hard, then, not to see similarities to what occurs among the gorillas with the invented drama of your typical reality shows featuring humans. In that sense, “A Gorilla Story,” could be seen as the ape version of “Survivor.” Or better yet, “Naked and Afraid.”
What sets the documentary apart, though, is Attenborough. His narration provides what we see with enough authority, mixed with his trademark sincerity, to be educational and entertaining.
That sincerity makes it easy to believe what he said on camera during that first encounter with Pablo nearly a half-century ago. And, too, it underscores the basic message that the documentary itself wants to make.
“There is,” Attenborough said, “more meaning and mutual understanding in exchanging a glance with a gorilla than with any other animal I know.”