Instinct - Hollywood on the effects of captivity

There are not many movies that try to tackle truly big themes, such as why is civilisation so brutal and make a clear link between civilisation and life in captivity.  In this blog the idea of captivity is prominent because certain behaviours in animals emerge in captivity that do not appear in animals living wild.  And, for me, behaviours like hair pulling can be traced to environmental deprivation in both animals and humans.  So, it was a big thrill to watch a Hollywood movie that tries looks at how environments can undermine species specific behaviours and how these environments can turn people crazy.  

Dr. Ethan Powell (Anthony Hopkins) has been arrested and returned to the USA after committing a murder in Rwanda, where he has been living amongst a group of gorillas, who have accepted him as part of their family. He returns and appears violent and refuses to speak until a psychiatrist, played by Cuba Gooding, Jr takes on his case as a way of furthering his own career.  He hopes to maybe write a book based on this curious case.

In the high security section of the jail where Powell is kept with other 'psychotic' patients, there is a lot of brutality from the prison guards who have their own ways of keeping the prisoners in line. Due to staff and funding shortages only one prisoner is allowed out each day into the exercise yard.  They randomly award each inmate a card from a standard playing deck and the one holding the ace of diamonds gets to see the sun and sky whilst the rest have to stay inside.  However, in reality the same person gets to go outside each day because he is able to bully the ace out of anyone weaker than him...until Powell arrives.  He fights to keep his ace and establishes a new pecking order, which arouses the dislike of the senior guard.

Meantime, the psychiatrist has started to win Powell's trust and got him to slowly open up.  We begin to understand why he killed someone.  He was living in peace with the gorillas and they had accepted him - not as one of their own (i.e. a gorilla) - but as a member of another species they accepted into their ranks.  This, as the film points out, is an amazing act.  Eventually, soldiers come to find Powell who has been reported as missing.  They open fire and kill all the adult gorillas believing them a threat.  Desperate to protect them Powell attacks them and kills one.

Understanding his patient better, Gooding's character tries to get him out of prison but further fights break out and it looks as though Powell will never be let out. Powell also makes him understand how we all live in captivity and how all our behaviours are distorted by this because we lack control over our environment.  Powell, profoundly explains how civilisation is a form of trap because we can never get outside of it and how it rewards destructive behaviours such as hoarding and profit seeking.  

Towards the end Powell is able to escape captivity with the assistance of Gooding and some of the other prisoners and returns to life outside society in the African jungle.  Meanwhile, Gooding realises that his career path is all wrong and that his striving to reach the top means he can never truly be free from the objectives that civilisation set for him, but which he does not choose for himself.

Although there is no stereotypical behaviour featured in the movie it aims to get to the heart of why people and animal behaviour can become distorted by an environment that is not one that the organism evolved within and is an adaptation to. Hopkins and Gooding are great and carry the film, which could so easily have failed with a lesser cast.  So, well worth a look by anyone interested in behaviour and in need of some entertainment.