Cameron and I saw The Cove yesterday at the Broadway, a documentary from the Oceanic Preservation Society. It had caught my eye when it was at Sundance but I didn't have a chance to see it; now, I want to encourage everyone to go see it if it comes to your city.
Some facts I learned:
23,000 dolphins a year are killed in Japan.
2,300 of these killings occur between September and March in one small town - Taiji - the largest dolphin slaughter in the world.
Although very few people willingly eat dolphin meat (as it contains toxic levels of mercury), the meat is disguised and sold in grocery stores or given out for lunches to Japanese schoolchildren.
The fisherman of Taiji make the bulk of their money not in dolphin slaughter but in the capture and trade of show dolphins.
The footage of the crew attempting to gain access to "the cove" and see for themselves what the fishermen are doing is incredible - as is the video they were able to obtain through their covert mission to install hidden cameras in fake rocks on the shore. It's pretty rare that a film is able to uncover, in no uncertain terms, an act that people have gone to monumental lengths to keep from the public view through lying, denying, and hiding. This footage is the first time anyone but the fisherman have been able to see the manner in which dolphins are being killed in Japan - something even the majority of the Japanese have no clue about.
Click for more info and ways to get involved!
www.savejapandolphins.org
www.takepart.com/thecove
Here are some tangentially related illustrations by Ivan Chermayeff for the Times Magazine's feature article, Watching Whales Watching Us.
2 comments:
I'll have to try to see that. Where is it playing - normal theaters?
And I love the whale art. Thanks for sharing. :)
Kristen, it's a limited release, and right now it's only playing at the Broadway in SLC. So I guess no, no "normal" theaters :) If you can't make it to the theater, though, I'm guessing it will be available to rent soon. I'm sure I don't need to warn you that it's a difficult film to watch - emotionally draining if you care about cetaceans/animals, disturbing and towards the end very graphic footage (the actual slaughter). But I do think it's important, because if you don't know about it, what can you do about it? So I think the filmmakers' efforts are really admirable in that way. There's a whole additional sad layer - the main activist in the film was the lead dolphin trainer on the show Flipper, and has since dedicated his life to freeing dolphins from captivity because of the effects he saw on the set, as well as his own guilt for "causing" the trade of bottlenosed dolphins to be so popular and profitable. Really heartbreaking stuff.
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