TotalTelly.co.uk
Devoted to Popular, Cult and Retro TV
Gorillas In The Mist [1988]
![Gorillas In The Mist [1988]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51HMX5Q9KYL._SL160_.jpg)
Unfortunately, the film's stodgy script and direction simply document Fossey's magnificent obsession, offering no insight into what lonely impulse of the soul led this extraordinary woman to climb up an African mountain to bond so strongly with gorillas. Cardboard characters include an eternally smiling, sexless African soulmate (John Omirah Miluwi), a perfect boyfriend (Bryan Brown) who has to be dumped in favour of gorilla-love, and stereotypical villains. Still, the African scenery is spectacular, and who can resist the cross-species thrill when the huge dark hand of Digit, Fossey's favourite, first rests in her outstretched palm? Gorillas in the Mist will please those who savour Sigourney Weaver's Amazonian fervour and the pure fire of her physical and spiritual passion--and harbour a slightly misanthropic fondness for liaisons between beauties and beasts. --Kathleen Murphy Sigourney Weavers captures the passion bordering on obsession of Fossey who, along with Jane Goodall and Birutai Galdecas-Brind'Amour (I know I butchered the spelling there, and apologize) added to our knowledge of primates as no one else has. These three devoted women lived side-by-side with their subjects (mountain gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans, respectively), and completely changed our understanding of the animals they studied. Hurray for them and for Weaver and this film for documenting and portraying this passion!
RRP: £13.99
Our Price: £3.12 (subject to change)
Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review
Sigourney Weaver more than earned her Oscar nomination for Best Actress in Gorillas in the Mist, dominating every frame of Michael Apted's biopic about primatologist Dian Fossey. Tenderly mothering an orphaned gorilla infant or terrorising an African poacher with a staged lynching, the statuesque star is never less than fiercely focused, a glamorous warrior for animal rights. As the amateur scientist who researched and spotlighted Rwanda's endangered mountain gorillas in National Geographic, Weaver is the passionate heart that keeps an otherwise flaccid film alive.
Sigourney Weaver shines
Review date: 2005-02-06 Rating: 10 out of 10
Sigourney Weaver was nominated for an Oscar for this film, and should have won it. This is one of the finest portayals of passion bordering on obsession in film history. Weaver portrays Dian Fossey, in a story that sticks pretty close to the facts that were then known. Fossey, who was an amateur naturalist (as were Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel), persuades (almost coerces) world-renowned archaeologist Louis Leakey into sponsoring her on an expedition to find, count, and study the mountain gorillas of Rwanda in central Africa. Thus begins Fossey's crusade to study and protect these gentle giants. She has to oppose farmers who want the land for farming, government bureaucrats who don't understand the needs of the gorillas, and poachers, and she will do ANYTHING to protect the gorillas, including staging a mock lynching of a poacher and going along with/feeding the natives' belief that she is a witch. Fossey ended up being murdered, and the movie implies that the poachers did it.
Similar Products
- Born Free / Living Free [1966] [1996]
- The Color Purple (Special Edition) [1985]
- Out Of Africa [1986]
- Hotel Rwanda
- To Walk With Lions [1999]
Reviews
A sympathetic portrait
Review date: 2004-05-08 Rating: 10 out of 10
I feel mixed about biopics as I'm always aware that no film maker could ever make an accurate film about somebody's life. It would be interesting to see how the film compared with the facts....
About the film itself:
The film starts with Dian asking for a job studying the mountain gorillas. It then quickly moves on to her arrival and adjustment to working in the jungle. After some searching she comes across her first gorillas. Shortly afterwards she's expelled to Rwanda.
From then on the film slows down and allows us to see her as she integrates herself into a group of gorillas. As the gorillas accept her she feels more and more kinship with them and her fight against poachers gets more and more extreme.
The film manages to show the other side of the issues concerned, mainly through the voices of the Information Minister and her guide, and still give us an affectionate portrait. You do need to be in serious mood to appreciate it.
Excellent
Review date: 2001-12-01 Rating: 8 out of 10
Very realistic and moving portale of the real story of Diane Fossy and the Grorillas of Rwanda and Uganda, especially interesting as these countries are back in the news with the current fighting threateding the Gorillas yet again.
Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
John Omirah Miluwi
Sigourney Weaver
Julie Harris
Iain Cuthbertson
Bryan Brown
Creators:
Sigourney Weaver (Primary Contributor)
Bryan Brown (Primary Contributor)
Arne Glimcher (Producer)
Jon Peters (Producer)
Judy Kessler (Producer)
Anna Hamilton Phelan (Writer)
Dian Fossey (Writer)
Harold T.P. Hayes (Writer)
Tab Murphy (Writer)
Director(s):
Recording label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
EAN: 7321900118545
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: PAL,
Release date: 2006-06-01
Number of discs: 1
Audience rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 124 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1988-09-23
Language: English (Original Language)