The Cove
The Cove, directed by Louie Psihoyos, has been shortlisted for an Oscar nomination at the 82nd Academy Awards and it probably deserves it. It is a bold, thrilling, enticing, concise piece of work that sheds light on an important issue, but there’s also a side to the documentary that left me wanting more by way of explanation and information. At times, The Cove feels like an emotional plea designed to stun people into submission to the ultimately worthy cause.
The Cove discusses and eviscerates the culture of whaling in Japan with a specific aim at targeting the cruel killing of dolphins in a national park in Taiji, Wakayama. The film’s basic claim is that tens of thousands of dolphins are killed in this particular cove each year, representing the broadest mass slaughter of dolphins on earth. Psihoyos, co-founder of the Oceanic Preservation Society and a photographer whose work has been featured in National Geographic, is tasked with laying the facts out for us.
The Taiji dolphin hunt is carried out to capture dolphins for show in marine theme marks. Those who don’t make the cut are slaughtered and sold for dolphin meat, which is incredibly high in mercury and clearly not for human consumption. The hunt drums up tremendous revenue for residents of Taiji, but it has been protested consistently by celebrities and organizations from the West.
The Cove, funded by billionaire James H. Clark, aims its cameras and a little bit of covert heist movie fun at Taiji in trying to capture footage of the dolphin hunt. The cove where the killing takes place is heavily guarded and no cameras are allowed behind the fences and security. For good reason, too, as any footage of the barbarism there would spark global outrage, right?
Psihoyos assembles a team, like Danny Ocean’s squad created to rob Vegas casinos, and heads to work in Japan to capture the hunt on film. At the core of the team is Ric O’Barry, the guy who captured the dolphins used in the TV show Flipper. Having made his fortune from capturing these creatures, O’Barry experienced a change of heart that made him into an activist. He explains lots of cool facts about dolphins, such as what their smiles are for.
Of course, The Cove really brings its bread and butter through to the fore with the obtained footage from a series of hidden cameras tucked away in fake rocks created by the guys at ILM. Here we are given “access” to a bloody barrage of dolphin killing. The film takes pause to show us the footage and it is vitally important to see it, without question, but its presentation led to some larger questions.
We must care about dolphins, we’re told, because they’re intelligent and they’re trying to relate to us. The film’s larger points, that of the mercury content in them and that they’re being fed to schoolchildren, are glossed over rather quickly and shockingly to draw us in to the big footage at the conclusion. And any facts about the crippling of the international fishing industry and its impact on our environment is, of course, also quickly covered.
What really matters, it seems, is that dolphins are among the world’s winsome creatures and are, therefore, more worthy of our attention. Cute and attractive has long been the order of the day and The Cove goes to great lengths to make sure that we know these creatures ought to be saved. Of course they ought to be, but what of the disasters in our own backyards? Why is Jamie Oliver left to deal with the chickens, for instance, and what about lab rats or other less desirable creatures?
While The Cove does beg some interesting questions, it also leaves a lot to be desired. Style is the thing here and the payoff is the footage obtained, not the exact presentation of facts on this important issue. Too few important details are missing and too many important issues are left underrepresented. It is, as one might expect, a rather one-sided piece of work as well and the Japanese do not come out of this one looking very good at all.
Even so, The Cove is worth seeing. It is a powerful motion picture, if only for being a rather pressing piece of propaganda, and its message should be heard and seen loud and clear. The footage is astounding and should be treated with outrage, but we should also reserve plenty of outrage for our own “more civilized” practices out West that threaten the survival of countless less cute species.
Trailer:
