The Cove

Kirk Krack

Self

There is something pretty harrowing about this documentary and it's definitely not for the squeamish. It follows a clandestine investigation by some American conservationists who suspect that a remote cove near the Japanese town of Taiji is being used by local fisherman to kettle and then slaughter hundreds of dolphins. Facing the hostility of the locals and the authorities, the team are determined to capture video evidence of this atrocity and so using state of the art technology and quite a bit of legerdemain, they attempt to infiltrate the highly secure locale to obtain it. In the course of their planning, we are made aware of the role the International Whaling Commission has in policing the fishing of cetaceans around the world, and plausible assertions are made that Japan is using financial and economic muscle to attract new members to it's fold so they can have it's long-term bans reversed or a least modified. We are also advised of the dangers of mercury within the food chain, and of the dangers of consuming dolphin meat as children - frequently when it is ill-defined on the packaging and/or disguised as something else. There's fairly clear complicity from the authorities demonstrated here, usually presented in the name of tradition and to an extent this documentary rather sneers at that. These are centuries-old fishing communities that quite possibly have always fished like this. That's not to excuse their current, brutal, practices - but what this does lack is a little of the historical context in which these fishermen behave and which might possibly explain some of their government's broader strategy in a nation that looks, like many other island nations, to the sea for the bulk of it's food. At times it uses the imagery as a bit of a blunt instrument to make a point that would also benefit from augmentation by debate. It's thought provoking and well worth a watch, but maybe just a little too simplistic in it's broad-brush philosophy.