The theatre is full. “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” develops captivating the attention of the ones present, especially children with parents and teenagers. Caesar, the chimpanzee who won the genetic barrier of speech, communicates with words and, hurt by the duplicity of human conduct, says “apes do not kill apes.” However, humans act differently, “human cheat”. The crowd gives a collective sound of approval to that statement.

In the course of the movie, there are good humans, seeking an agreement with non-human primates, and others planning the death of all non-human.

Caesar, the leader of the community of great apes that live in the woods near San Francisco, after having escaped from zoos and medical torture laboratories, was created by humans; he does not have the hate that his companions have to humans, who tortured them and held them prisoners for years. When the group led by chimp Koba discover that the betrayal of the agreement is being generated, they anticipate and attack humans, with a war breaking out, much like what happens today in the world of humans.

It is something similar to what we experience daily in the Sanctuary. We have a group of chimpanzees created by us, who have an awareness and experience of life with humans, different from the other half, who suffered a lot in the hands of humans in zoos and circuses. They do not understand the rebellious side of those who suffered hardship and pain at the hands of humans they lived with. The group we call “ours” communicate with us, understand us, and we understand them, and hardly will they damage those who they trust. On the other hand, the exploited ones are a “time bomb” ready to explode at any opportunity.

Despite the humans of the film be survivors of a pandemic simian flu, which was created in medical torture laboratories and settled much of the population, they still have this dominant and violent behavior in the territory they understand they control. And they use brutal force, especially weapons of human technology, to assert this so called dominance and eradicate beings they consider inferior.

The dilemma that the film masterfully directed by Matt Reeve puts into play is the cross that mankind carries daily, destroying everything around it to continue to be, wrongly, the dominant species.

In a few years – maybe 2030, or long before – if the Ebola epidemic that affects all primates is not contained, all great apes will disappear from the wild. Their habitat would be replaced by humans who think only to enrich quickly, dominating their peers in every square inch of this planet, which should be of all of us, human and nonhuman, who will end up killing each other.
Dr. Pedro A. Ynterian
President, GAP Project International