Nénette

Nénette is filmed through the dirty glass of the monkey house (in winter for most of the sequences) or through the grating of her summer cage. We see only her and her fellow orangutans in the Jardin des Plantes, learning to distinguish them from each other. The close resemblance between the physiognomy of an orang-utan and that of a human triggers a mechanism of identification that is common in cinema. We try to put ourselves in Nénette’s place as she contemplates the world from the inside, to form an idea of the humankind she sees. All we can do is hear her. The film’s soundtrack is made up of comments from visitors, professionals (the keepers – apparently the term ‘warden’ has been dropped as is too reminiscent of a prison) and artists, who talk while watching Nénette watch them. On several occasions, the sad look in the great ape’s eyes is in complete agreement with the words, but we soon realise that this is no doubt a coincidence, and that if this is not the case, we will never be able to establish the scope of these correspondences. (...) No matter how many scientific or poetic explanations and commentaries are made, the mystery remains, and this inability to understand becomes so violent that it spills over into other cinema experiences. We end up wondering whether all documentaries are not the same, putting us in the position of the visitor imagining they understand the animal behind the glass. (Thomas Sotinel; Le Monde)