From a director of “Tiger King,” the four-part HBO documentary dives into the wild, salacious and dangerous world of people who have chimpanzees as pets.
The four-part documentary series “Chimp Crazy,” debuting at 10 p.m. Sunday, on HBO, has plenty of chimps, and boy is it crazy. Sad and gruesome, too, and sometimes poignant and philosophical. “Monkey love,” we’re told, is a unique, radicalizing kind of love — more profound than the one between two humans. “The bond is much deeper,” says Tonia Haddix, one of the show’s central figures. “It’s just natural; it’s like your love for God.”
Can she get an amen? Actually, no: Haddix, who describes herself as “the Dolly Parton of the chimps,” is an advocate for and a participant in the private chimpanzee market. She says she has a special, spectacular bond with Tonka, an adult chimp who was in several movies and whom she considers particularly docile and soulful. She insists, repeatedly, that Tonka, among others, is more of a “humanzee” — as much a person as he is a chimp. In one scene, she and Tonka watch Instagram videos of other chimpanzees, including his offspring.
“Chimp Crazy” and “Tiger King” share an executive producer and director in Eric Goode, and they also share an ecstatic tabloid salaciousness. One woman breastfed a chimp baby alongside her human daughter. A man describes the chimp his mother housed as “the Tom Brady of chimpanzees,” on account of his handsomeness.
Everyone in this documentary is suffering, and some of them are ridiculous. And others of them are chimps. “Chimp Crazy” is more textured than “Tiger King,” partly because of its closer attention to the plight of animals. Intertwined with Haddix’s saga are stories of other people who thought they could raise chimps and live together in unending familial bliss — until the chimps reached adolescence, at which point they attacked someone. These attacks are horrific and often fatal, though the chimp owners are rarely deterred.
Haddix’s battle with the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals shapes much of the action of the documentary, and jaw-dropping details and twists are never more than a doleful recollection away. “Crazy” is both compassionate and manipulative, and the filmmakers themselves deceive some of their subjects and become major players in Haddix and Tonka’s story. (Also a player: the actor Alan Cumming, who once acted alongside Tonka and eventually offers a $10,000 reward for information leading to the animal’s whereabouts.) There’s an endless “OMG” feeling to everything here, the kind of show that puts the outrage in outrageousness.
Source: Television - nytimes.com
