Baboon Tales reminds us of two things we tend to forget about our simian cousins: 1) they are intelligent, social creatures with distinctive personalities, and 2) they have some of the ugliest butts in the animal kingdom. Narrated by Glenn Close, this beautifully lensed half-year-in-the-life of an Olive baboon troop caught in one of East Africa's worst droughts, focuses on the relationships of five newborns: with their mothers, the males and females in the group, outsiders and each other. Like us, baboons make their way in the world on the strength of their personalities, their place in the social hierarchy, a little bit of luck, and the help of friends. Viewers will follow some interesting storylines. There's Moon, a large adolescent baboon who is almost ready to strike out on his own, but first he has to act up a bit. Like a confused James Dean, the teenage Moon at one point grabs a youngster to draw attention to himself--and immediately gets it from a ticked off adult male who doesn't much care for Moon's grandstanding. There's poor Anna, a baby baboon who dies from malnutrition; her mother--in denial--continues to carry her corpse around. And there's Ranma, who's injured in an attack by a roving band of baboons and left behind to die...until a solicitous friend returns to retrieve her. Far from being merely a dry recitation of animal facts delivered between scenes of animals eating other animals, Baboon Tales--while neither as compelling nor as attractively priced as the similarly-themed chimpanzee study People of the Forest (VL-1/93), $14.95--is an engaging portrait of creatures who, in many ways, are much like ourselves (butts notwithstanding). Recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)
Baboon Tales
(1998) 52 min. $250. Tamarin Productions (dist. by Bullfrog Films). PPR. Color cover. ISBN: 1-56029-775-1. Vol. 14, Issue 3
Baboon Tales
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