gorillas in the mist: the story of dian fossey

Director: michael apted

Actor: sigourney weaver,bryan brown,julie harris,john omirah miluwi

Data Published: Fri Oct 07 1988

Genres: Biography,Drama

Key Words: gorilla,africa,based on true story,mountain,nature

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095243/

WIKI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorillas_in_the_Mist:_The_Story_of_Dian_Fossey

Description: Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey is a movie starring Sigourney Weaver, Bryan Brown, and Julie Harris. The story of Dian Fossey, a scientist who came to Africa to study the vanishing mountain gorillas, and later fought...

Plot: Occupational therapist Dian Fossey (Sigourney Weaver) is inspired by the anthropologist Louis Leakey (Iain Cuthbertson) to devote her life to the study of primates. To this end, she writes ceaselessly to him for a job cataloguing and studying the rare mountain gorillas of Africa. With some effort, she manages to convince Leakey of her conviction and devotion to the cause at hand after personally approaching him following a lecture in Louisville, Kentucky, on his part in 1966. Thereafter, Fossey embarks into the Congo, where Leakey and his foundation equip her with the necessary equipment and housing to achieve personal contact with the gorillas, and introduce her to a local animal tracker, Sembagare (John Omirah Miluwi), to assist her in her endeavors. Settling deep in the jungle, Fossey and Sembagare manage to locate a troop of gorillas, but they are ultimately displaced by the events of the Congo Crisis after being forcibly evicted from their research site by Congolese soldiers, who accuse Fossey of being a foreign spy and agitator. Initially, Fossey sees no other option but to leave the continent and return to the United States. However, after Sembagare and her temporary host Rosamond Carr (Julie Harris) motivate her to stay, she decides to base her research efforts in the jungles of neighboring Rwanda, which Dian presumes will be safe from outside incursions. However, what Fossey fails to foresee are the rampant problems of poaching and corruption taking place therein, which become apparent when she discovers several traps in the vicinity of her new base at Karisoke. Nevertheless, Fossey and her colleagues make several key headways with the gorillas, taking account of the gorilla's communication and social groups. In so doing, her work impresses Leakey and gains broader international attention. National Geographic, which funds her efforts, takes an increasingly marked interest in her work and dispatches photographer Bob Campbell (Bryan Brown) to highlight her research. Fossey, initially unreceptive towards the outsider Campbell, grows increasingly attached to him after several photo sessions with the gorillas, and the two eventually become lovers, in spite of Campbell's marriage. Campbell proposes to divorce his wife and marry her but insists that she would have to spend time away from Karisoke and her gorillas, leading her to call off the tryst and ending their relationship. During this time, Fossey also becomes close to a gorilla named Digit, forming an emotional bond with him, and attempts to prevent the export of other gorillas by the trader Van Vecten (Constantin Alexandrov). Increasingly appalled by the poaching of the gorillas for their skins, hands and heads, Fossey complains to the Rwandan government, which dismisses her by claiming that poaching is the only means by which some of the Rwandan natives can themselves survive. However, a government minister (Waigwa Wachira) promises to equip her with a three-man anti-poaching squad and pay for their salaries. Ultimately, Fossey's frustration reaches a climax when Digit is killed and beheaded by poachers, leading her to ever-more extreme actions to save the gorillas from illegal poaching and likely extinction. To this end, she forms and leads numerous anti-poaching patrols, burning down the poachers' villages and even staging a mock execution of one of the offenders, serving to alienate some of her research assistants and gaining her various enemies. Sembagare expresses concern at her open opposition to the emergent industry of gorilla tourism, but Fossey nonchalantly dismisses his worries by stating that she already has an extended travel visa and increasing financial support for her research. However, on December 27, 1985, Dian Fossey is brutally murdered in the bedroom of her cabin by an unseen assailant. Thereafter, at a funeral attended by Sembagare, Carr and others, she is buried in the same cemetery where Digit and other gorillas had been laid to rest. Afterwards, Sembagare symbolically links the graves of Fossey and Digit with stones as a sign that their souls rest in peace together before leaving. A pre-credits sequence indicates her actions to help save the gorillas paid off greatly and the species was saved from extinction as a result. According to the ending, Dian Fossey's death remains a mystery.