Rise of the Warrior Apes

The documentary follows a troop of chimpanzees. The troop lives in the Ngogo forest in Uganda. The filming spread across twenty three years. At the centre of the account are four male chimpanzees. The four of them rule the troop together. The way they rule does not rest on any clear morality. The alliances they build are calculated. Trust that breaks down is part of the account too. The film looks at how the hierarchy is put together. The question of the dominant male is inside the account too. The work tells animal behaviour through observation. The troop lives within the bounds of a national park. Researchers observed the troop for years. Their records are what the film is built on. David Watts and John Mitani are the ones who speak, in James Reed’s Ugandan and British coproduction of 2017, which runs eighty nine minutes.