By now, you are probably familiar with the horrific climax of The Cove: a seemingly endless sequence in which dolphins are massacred wholesale by Japanese fishermen, in the minor inlet of the film’s title. Had the film been not so clear about which side of the ideological divide it stood on, it would have doubtlessly come under fire by animal rights activists as exploitative, regardless of its veracity, but it does. It never allows you for one moment to guess what its thoughts are on the topic of the Japanese dolphin industry, nor what yours should be. Without the horrific footage it possesses to back it up, this would have grown tiresome quickly, but since it builds as effectively as it does to its now infamous finale, the missionary zeal of the protagonists seems not only noble, but justified and relateable. The film may be intended as a call to arms, but it gains its true grounding as a portrait of those who have forsaken nearly everything else in their lives but helping dolphins.
A good deal of The Cove is shot on low-tech cameras suited to shooting at night, in a kind of glow that makes everything look a pale, ethereal white/green. That’s because much of the film is spent with animal rights activists as they plan their infiltration of the titular “cove”, deep into areas marked as off-limits by the local government for reasons not clearly enumerated. Their ostensible leader is Rick O’Barry, a man once welcome in Japan, but who now claims that officials and fishermen there would kill him if they had legal means to do so (during our introduction to him, he wears a white mask over his face for fear of being recognized). O’Barry has very personal reasons for wanting to investigate the Japanese dolphin industry, having been a dolphin trainer instrumental in the production of Flipper, which he holds as responsible for popularizing dolphins and making this industry possible. In concert with a number of other individuals with harshly negative opinions of the industry (one of the key ones involves complicity and silence over dangerously high levels of mercury in dolphin meat fed to children), O’Barry works tirelessly to expose the industry for what it is: a shady, irresponsible enterprise that is brutal at best and criminal at worst.
The ‘undercover’ aesthetic of much of The Cove makes it feel like a spy movie, as teams of crack individuals work surreptitiously under cover of darkness to break into fenced off facilities. It is so fitting primarily because this is so clearly how they see themselves. O’Barry speaks so angrily, so furiously throughout much of the film, that it’s clear exactly what the filmmakers saw in him: he’s been living his own movie for so long (with himself as the protagonist), complete with a scattered grassroots resistance and a vast, uncaring monopoly, that all that they had to was pick up the camera and capture it as it happened. The director even indulges his subject in a lengthy musing asserting that Japan’s dolphin industry is a manifestation of a defect in the country’s national character, a short-sighted and insidious revolt against Western interference in internal affairs. It’s particularly striking in the wake of the earthquakes that recently hit the country, but it’s a surprising leap for a documentary to make regardless.
When that bloody climax comes, however, the devotion and theatricality of O’Barry’s civil and uncivil disobedience seems not only justified, but noble. His is what might be called an activist’s mania; a distinctly antisocial form of behavior that comes from seriously engaging with problems that would cause society to stop functioning if they were addressed to scale with their severity. That’s not to say that everyone should necessarily respond to issues in the way that O’Barry does, but it’s enough to make you glad that there are people like him operating on the fringe of societies, calling out warnings so that we don’t forget the consequences of allowing our institutions to become complacent. At the end of the film, several positive results of actions taken by the likes of O’Barry are listed, and while they provide a satisfying denouement to the events preceding it, they seem like precious little in comparison to the problem faced. Whether or not you will fall in line with the film’s cry for help is up to you, but it’d be surprising if you don’t at least consider it, or curse yourself a little if you don’t.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
The Blu-ray release features a commentary by director Louie Psihoyos and producer Fisher Stevens, the documentary "The Cove: Mercury Rising", as well as deleted scenes, some behind-the-scenes videos, and the theatrical trailer.
"The Cove (Blu-ray)" is on sale April 5, 2011 and is rated PG13. Documentary. Directed by Louie Psihoyos. Written by Mark Monroe. Starring Richard Obarry, Louis Psihoyos.
