In a sleepy lagoon off the coast of Japan lies a shocking secret that a few desperate men will stop at nothing to keep hidden from the world. In Taiji, Japan, former dolphin trainer Ric O'Barry has come to set things right after a long search for redemption. In the 1960s, it was O'Barry who captured and trained the 5 dolphins who played the title character in the international television sensation "Flipper." One fateful day, a heartbroken Barry came to realize that these deeply sensitive, highly intelligent and self-aware creatures must never be subjected to human captivity again.
This mission has brought him to Taiji, a town that appears to be devoted to the wonders and mysteries of the sleek, playful dolphins and whales that swim off their coast. But in a remote, glistening cove, surrounded by barbed wire and "Keep Out" signs, lies a dark reality. It is here, under cover of night, that the fishermen of Taiji, driven by a multi-billion dollar dolphin entertainment industry and an underhanded market for mercury-tainted dolphin meat, engage in an unseen hunt. The nature of what they do is so chilling and the consequences are so dangerous to human health that they will go to great lengths to halt anyone from seeing it.
The Cove
Maxabout Review
Offers a Disturbing look, Exposing the cruelty of Japan's dolphin industry.. .
Friday, July 31, 2009
"The Cove," a new and incendiary documentary, lays out the charges against our race. And it's not just that we stick these creatures in aquariums and swim-with-the-dolphins programs -- entertainments that amuse us, but, experts say, leave the animals sick and disoriented.
Director
Louis Psihoyos is, by vocation, a nature photographer and by avocation a diver; not all of his material here is well-organized (and there's far too much night-vision photography, turning the screen green and black and ugly for long stretches). But this
film is less a work of journalism than a call to activism; movies like "The Cove," to a certain extent, preach to the converted.
The Cove" tells the story of O'Barry's mission to obtain hard evidence of what goes on in Taiji. Mark Monroe's clear, intelligent text traces a conspiracy built of many parts, all of which can be chalked up to human greed or stupidity: the widespread mercury poisoning that has rendered dolphin meat almost inedible; the mislabeling of dolphin meat so as to unload a product for which there is little human demand; and the refusal of the Intl. Whaling Commission (which has banned O'Barry as a member) to protect cetaceans from commercial whaling.
The Cove won the audience award for documentary at 2009's Sundance Film Festival and in many ways it is easy to see why. In terms of camerawork, it is well-made and its thriller elements - which echo the same sort of edge-of-the-seat tension employed so admirably by James Marsh in last year's Man On Wire - are certainly gripping. But scratch the good looking surface and The Cove's contentions start to look very wobbly.
The film, irritatingly, drops in the fact that the Yangtze River dolphins are no longer with us, presumably in order to make us think they're all under terrible threat. And yet, the Yangtze dolphin was, sadly, forced into extinction not by fishing methods, but because its sonar couldn't cope with shipping traffic in the waterway. To hold it up as an example and hope your audience will jump to the conclusion you want is very sloppy indeed.
Then there's the issue of why the dolphins are being slaughtered in the first place. The film contends that the fishermen round them up in the
hopes of selling off the ones with the cutest smile to dolphinaria and aquaria across the globe for big bucks. The casualties of this are the unwanted mammals, who are then herded off to the cove and culled. All of which makes the filmmaker's decision to target Taiji seem even more odd. It would have been much more interesting for them to chase this particular argument down and find out what those in the West think of the fact that they are complicit in the slaughter.
The film's problems continue as it broadens out its subject to talk about the dangers of eating dolphin meat. Brief interviews with local people seem to indicate dolphin is rarely eaten by anyone and suggestions that the meat is somehow sold on the black market or passed off as other seafood are, although interesting, not well substantiated.
The subject matter is emotive. What's not to love about a dolphin? With their ready smiles and charming mythology/history of human rescue, they're one of the few water-based animals for which no PR is needed. So, the idea of them being slaughtered en masse in the small Japanese fishing village of Taiji, is bound to have Flipper fans in a frenzy.
Tech package is first-rate, benefiting from Psihoyos' experience as a photographer for National Geographic. Coverage of the events described is superbly comprehensive and cut together with forceful clarity by editor Geoffrey Richman.
The film isn't exactly balanced, though, with Japanese leaders and international whaling officials categorically coming off as duplicitous. The statistic is repeatedly mentioned that 23,000 dolphins and porpoises are killed annually in Japan, but we're never told the origin of this figure. And Psihoyos offers such a dizzying array of talking heads to make his points, it's often hard to keep track of who does what with the various biological and oceanic agencies.
The last 10 minutes or so are a doozy — difficult to watch for their graphic violence, frustrating in the sense of helplessness they inspire. At the very least, "The Cove" will make you think twice before taking the kids to a marine park to see dolphins do tricks.