Man to Man 2005 is a 2005 film directed by Régis Wargnier and starring Joseph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas.
In 1870, Victorian scientists Jamie Dodd (Fiennes) and Elena Van Den Ende (Scott Thomas) capture a pygmy couple during an expedition in Central Africa. They are transported back to the United Kingdom for further study as part of research involving the theory of the evolution of man. However, the primitive outlook of the pygmies and the sophisticated methods used by the scientists, as well as the complications of adapting to a foreign environment, make their anthropological study all the more difficult. Dodd, gradually discovering their sensitivity and their intelligence, will strive to prove that these natives are human beings in their own right, and not animals intended to cause a sensation in zoos as beasts. Ultimately, as the pygmies become more absorbed to the public, major disagreements erupt culminating in a bloody and tragic confrontation.
This film features examples of:
- Action Girl: Elena, a Victorian woman capable of brandishing a gun.
- Anachronism Stew: In the cage trap/fight scene, in which one of the pygmies, Likola, shoots Douglas, she is using a model 1873 Colt Single Action Army revolver (a.k.a. "The Peacemaker"), even though the film is stated to be set in 1870.
- Darkest Africa: Given that it's about two scientists capturing two pygmies in Central Africa in the 19th century, the continent is portrayed as an uncivilized dark world.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: The main plot of the movie concerns how society at the time the movie is set (1870) considered African natives to be less than human beings, and Dodd gradually realizing that they actually are.
