UNLOCKING THE CAGE directed by D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus. A FilmsWeLike release. 92 minutes. Opens Friday (August 19). See showtimes.
D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus have met a lot of people and told a lot of stories over their decades in the documentary business. But with Unlocking The Cage, the filmmakers – who are partners both personally and professionally – are pushing into new territory.
The documentary tracks American lawyer Steven Wise through the courts as he argues cases for the Nonhuman Rights Project, trying to use habeas corpus arguments to lead judges to acknowledge the sentience of captive chimpanzees.
“It was kind of far-fetched and novel and interesting,” Hegedus says of Wise’s strategy. “Part of making these films for us is the act of exploring, where we learn about it, too, and it’s exciting for us. Other people might like to do all the research before-hand our research is making the film, so we take people on that journey.”
As it turned out, that journey took a little longer than they expected.
“When I started the film it was going to be something simple,” Hegedus recalls. “One case, with one plaintiff – and [then] there were three different cases, different courts, different types of decisions.”
The pair ended up spending four years with Wise and his associates.
“This was the first time we’d ever taken the law on as a subject,” Pennebaker says, “and the law is slow-moving. But it’s not a story you can bail [on]. It’s the world that we’re going to inherit, the world that our great-grandchildren are going to live in. You can sort of begin to see how different it’s going to be from the one we all inhabited in the past. And that really seduces filmmakers.”
In its observational, uninflected presentation, Unlocking The Cage is of a piece with Pennebaker and Hegedus’s other films – movies as diverse as The War Room, about James Carville and George Stephanopoulos at work spinning Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, and Kings Of Pastry, which followed chef Jacquy Pfeiffer through the 2007 Meilleur Ouvrier de France.
But this one feels different. There’s anger beneath the surface, a feeling that we’re witnessing an imbalance that the justice system refuses to acknowledge, let alone correct. Every time some newscaster covering Wise makes a joke about household pets demanding personhood next, we can feel the filmmakers bristle.
“That’s the slippery slope that causes nothing to happen,” Hegedus says. “And that’s what Steve fights against. The only stopping point is what he says in the film, which is that judges say they can’t do it because they don’t believe in it, so they just can’t do it.”
In its subtle way, Unlocking The Cage is an advocacy documentary reflecting the filmmakers’ own awakening to the personhood issue.
“I think this film has changed us more than most,” Hegedus says. “We really saw first-hand just how incredible animals are, and to see these few chimpanzees and bonobos that have been taught our language, and to communicate with us… it’s chilling to watch that. Just to be able to see that type of communication and that understanding of the English language that these great apes had was life-changing.
“It means that you have to consider all animals in some way as sentient beings, and what that means to us and what that means to them and what that means to the planet.”
Don’t miss our review of Unlocking The Cage here.
normw@nowtoronto.com | @normwilner
