Il gorilla

Sven Nykvist directs and shoots a film about a Swedish man in the jungle. He makes his living collecting animals for zoos. When a village is attacked by a rogue gorilla he heads into the bush to kill it.At the same time he is saddled with a female photographer who insists on going along. More documentary then drama this is a beautiful film that shows a side of the African wilderness that is probably all gone now. Certainly animals like the rhinoceros with horns the size of a small car are gone. As a documentary of life in the jungle and its changing nature its a great little film. Clearly the filmmakers are were aware that the world they were filming was changing and they note it in the narration. As a drama the film is pretty standard stuff. its clear that the man and the women will have a romance and all of that. However there really isn't much to the story and the emotional climax of the film isn't really the gorilla hunt, which ends with a "thats it?" moment, rather its an elephant stampede just before it. Flaws of the drama aside this is quite simply one of the better African lensed films I've seen. Certainly its one of the better documentaries of the period(which predates the Mondo Cane style shock films by a couple of years). I really liked this film. If you take it as a drama its 6 out of 10. As a documentary its 7 out of ten.