French director Barbet Schroeder's documentary focuses on Koko, a gorilla trained by scientists at Stanford University to communicate using American Sign Language. Far from animal-rights propaganda, this film asks penetrating questions about the nature of these experiments. Is Koko simply being brainwashed? Is she actually thinking with language or simply repeating learned behaviors? A thought-provoking and sobering statement on current relations between mankind, his closest relatives, and nature as a whole.