This week's new DVD & Blu-ray

Project Nim The genetic closeness of apes to humans is key to this excellent documentary. It not only goes some way to explaining the behaviour of the scientists towards the chimp in this tale, but it's also why the story is so much more affecting than the usual animal documentary; we're all primates, after all. It started as an experiment (not the first or last) to see if apes could be taught to use and understand sign language to communicate with people on a meaningful level. The subject – a baby chimpanzee, slyly dubbed Nim Chimpsky – was raised, for a while, as a member of a human family. For Nim this was the start of an utterly confusing and unfair life where he was treated as either pet, person or project, with the lines between them barely defined. The cuteness of chimps makes everyone forget they are unpredictable little bundles of teeth and muscle; Nim often "reverts" to his more naturally animalistic behaviour and is more or less punished for it. Man On Wire director James Marsh sets out Nim's life in a very cinematic manner. It's full of humour (the one scientific fact that the experiment conclusively proves is that a chimp looks hilarious wearing a 1970s leisure suit) to counter the often upsetting scenes. It would make an excellent double bill with Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, a movie that trades in the same type of anthropomorphism that frequently made Nim's life such an ordeal. DVD, Icon Troll Hunter Wonderful Norwegian horror mockumentary on creepy troll activity. DVD & Blu-ray, Momentum Boardwalk Empire Scorsese-produced prohibition-era epic gangster series. DVD & Blu-ray, Warner/HBO Arrietty, Whisper Of The Heart Two new Studio Ghibli literary adaptations, the first of The Borrowers, the second of a popular fantasy manga. DVD & Blu-ray, Studiocanal/Optimum Melancholia Earth is on a collision course with a gigantic metaphor in Lars von Trier's tale of depression, starring Kirsten Dunst. DVD & Blu-ray, Artificial Eye