‘Cage’ opens eyes to apes’ plight
Take a journey of enlightenment in Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker’s eye-opening documentary “Unlocking the Cage” with animal rights attorney Steven Wise.
In opening scenes, we learn that Wise and his colleagues in the Nonhuman Rights Project are about to fight what he rightfully declares a war, however jurisprudential, to win civil rights, such as the “right to autonomy” and habeas corpus for “cognitive animals” such as great apes, cetaceans and elephants.
Using lawsuits, Wise wants courts to change their perception of cognitive animals as “things” and to make the courts see them as nonhuman “persons.” Wise himself is a cuddly father figure and family man who changes his practice completely in order to represent abused animals everywhere, starting in New York state. His biggest case is going to be in Albany, where he will plead his case before some, to say the least, skeptical and even hostile judges. What for example would be the ramifications of such a decision for the fishing industry? Wise wants to round up all the chimpanzees in New York state, many of them living in cages, depressed and abused, and ship them to the wide open Save the Chimps Sanctuary in Florida, where they can enjoy much more freedom, even if they are in a controlled environment. In the film, Wise and the viewers meet several chimps, many of them in desperate straits, on borrowed time and dead before the case comes to court.
Yes, some chimp owners have “their hearts in the right place.” But Wise argues humans should not have the right to own “cognitive animals.” Comparisons to slavery are a thorny issue. But they do shed some light on Wise’s arguments because slaves were once legally designated as “chattel” and not human beings. Surely, if corporations are “persons,” a sentient creature could be one as well?
The film assembles live footage, archival material and footage of a persuasive Wise on the news and TV shows pleading his case. The New York City tabloids love this guy and his quest. The filmmaking artistry here is in making the legal maneuvering and rhetoric crystal clear to viewers while observing Wise and his colleagues at work, in court, visiting animals and just talking together in between. By the end you will feel like you’ve been in a real-life “Planet of the Apes,” and you will want the apes to win. Bob Dylan singing “I Shall Be Released” over the end credits is not only suitable, but also a wink of the eye at Pennebaker’s landmark 1967 documentary “Bob Dylan: Don’t Look Back.”
(“Unlocking the Cage” has some scenes of animals in physical and emotional distress.)