Ric O’Barry was the man who captured and trained the dolphins used on the show Flipper. He’s very conscious of the fact that he himself is largely responsible for creating the love that people have for dolphins today. All the dolphinariums and “frolic with a dolphin” attractions that have proliferated in the decades since are largely due to the success of Flipper, and he is acutely aware of his culpability. He is also acutely aware of how wrong all these places are, and he has devoted his life since to rectifying the ugly truth of it all ever since. “I spent ten years building that industry up, and I spent the last thirty-five years trying to tear it down.” Those last thirty five years have been his quest for personal redemption. He has been arrested numerous times (at one point in the movie when he’s asked how many times he’s been arrested, his response is to ask “this year?”) freeing dolphins from captivity and doing everything else in his power to champion the cause of dolphin preservation in the wild. This has caused him to be considered persona non grata in many quarters. While some would argue that O’Barry is a whacked out eco-terrorist, there is no arguing his compassion, humanity and sincerity. Compared to the weaselly apologists and unctuous apparatchiks he is up against, who appear to have a hard time buying their own bullshit, he is a pillar of conviction and honesty. Watching various Japanese officials, and their pitiful attempts to justify the wholesale slaughter of dolphins are too bizarre to be believed. Watching as small, impoverished nations endorse Japan’s slaughter of whales, it’s apparent to anyone with an IQ at about room temperature (in Celsius) that they’ve been bought. The whole thing reeks of corruption.
He argues that dolphins are extremely intelligent, self-aware, communicate with one another, have a sense of their own mortality, and are even capable of committing suicide. Dolphins have had a uniquely symbiotic relationship with mankind, with tales told throughout history of dolphins rescuing humans stranded at sea and even of protecting them from underwater predators such as sharks. Perhaps it’s anthropomorphizing, but some think that dolphins are at the intellectual level of humans, they just live in the ocean instead of on land.
Besides just the stupidity of decimating these animals because, as the claim is made, they are apparently depleting fish stocks, the other thing the film delves into is that dolphin meat is sold in Japan as whale meat. Dolphin meat has frighteningly high levels of mercury, which is then in turn passed on to people. Besides the fact that Japan is wiping these animals out, the practice also turns around and maims the people of Japan.
He knows of a cove in Taiji, Japan that dolphins are driven into for capture to be sent to SeaWorld and other places like it. This has become a multi-million dollar a year business in the intervening decades since Flipper. The ones that aren’t picked, aren’t released back into the ocean. Instead they are taken to a secluded cove to be slaughtered. By the thousands. By the tens of thousands. Aware of the outcry that would ensue at people witnessing the horror that goes on there, it is fenced off, and a phalanx of goons drives off anyone who comes near it and attempts to film the area.
He hooks up with former National Geographic photographer and documentarian Louie Psihoyos, and a variety of friends and colleagues, to form an, as they describe it, “Ocean’s Eleven” team. Everything from climbers, free divers, videographers, etc. They hide cameras inside fake rocks made up by ILM. They build a balloon and get a remote controlled miniature helicopter with cameras mounted on gimbals to serve as aerial filming platforms.
While many movies pretend to portray cloak and dagger covert operations, this one shows it for real. This is a genuine espionage mission. The risks they take are very real. Either the police catching them, or the local fishermen getting their hands on them, the consequenses would have been very ugly. The scenes of their efforts to sneak in and place their cameras, really is edge of your seat stuff. This isn’t make believe. It’s very genuine.
The scenes they manage to capture are brutal. Hard to watch, but important to see. Detractors of the film claim that it is culturally insensitive to criticize Japan for this practice. Sorry, but cultures deserve to be praised for the positive and chided for the negative. Should we let mutiliating the genitals of little girls slide because it might offend the perpetrators? Fuck that.
The scene where O’Barry walks into the farcically impotent International Whaling Commission meeting, a large monitor strapped to his chest showing the footage they shot, is really powerful. He says nothing, just lets the images speak or themselves. And wow, do those images say a lot.
The look on the face of the ineffectual apologist for the Japanese Fisheries Ministry when Psihoyos shows him the footage from the cove, after he had just stated that there was no cruelty involved, is priceless. It’s the look of someone who realizes the jig is up.
The film is a bit hard to watch in places, but given all the warnings we’re getting about the deleterious effect mankind is having on the oceans and the species they contain, I think it behooves people to learn what is happening and speak out against it.
He argues that dolphins are extremely intelligent, self-aware, communicate with one another, have a sense of their own mortality, and are even capable of committing suicide. Dolphins have had a uniquely symbiotic relationship with mankind, with tales told throughout history of dolphins rescuing humans stranded at sea and even of protecting them from underwater predators such as sharks. Perhaps it’s anthropomorphizing, but some think that dolphins are at the intellectual level of humans, they just live in the ocean instead of on land.
Besides just the stupidity of decimating these animals because, as the claim is made, they are apparently depleting fish stocks, the other thing the film delves into is that dolphin meat is sold in Japan as whale meat. Dolphin meat has frighteningly high levels of mercury, which is then in turn passed on to people. Besides the fact that Japan is wiping these animals out, the practice also turns around and maims the people of Japan.
He knows of a cove in Taiji, Japan that dolphins are driven into for capture to be sent to SeaWorld and other places like it. This has become a multi-million dollar a year business in the intervening decades since Flipper. The ones that aren’t picked, aren’t released back into the ocean. Instead they are taken to a secluded cove to be slaughtered. By the thousands. By the tens of thousands. Aware of the outcry that would ensue at people witnessing the horror that goes on there, it is fenced off, and a phalanx of goons drives off anyone who comes near it and attempts to film the area.
He hooks up with former National Geographic photographer and documentarian Louie Psihoyos, and a variety of friends and colleagues, to form an, as they describe it, “Ocean’s Eleven” team. Everything from climbers, free divers, videographers, etc. They hide cameras inside fake rocks made up by ILM. They build a balloon and get a remote controlled miniature helicopter with cameras mounted on gimbals to serve as aerial filming platforms.
While many movies pretend to portray cloak and dagger covert operations, this one shows it for real. This is a genuine espionage mission. The risks they take are very real. Either the police catching them, or the local fishermen getting their hands on them, the consequenses would have been very ugly. The scenes of their efforts to sneak in and place their cameras, really is edge of your seat stuff. This isn’t make believe. It’s very genuine.
The scenes they manage to capture are brutal. Hard to watch, but important to see. Detractors of the film claim that it is culturally insensitive to criticize Japan for this practice. Sorry, but cultures deserve to be praised for the positive and chided for the negative. Should we let mutiliating the genitals of little girls slide because it might offend the perpetrators? Fuck that.
The scene where O’Barry walks into the farcically impotent International Whaling Commission meeting, a large monitor strapped to his chest showing the footage they shot, is really powerful. He says nothing, just lets the images speak or themselves. And wow, do those images say a lot.
The look on the face of the ineffectual apologist for the Japanese Fisheries Ministry when Psihoyos shows him the footage from the cove, after he had just stated that there was no cruelty involved, is priceless. It’s the look of someone who realizes the jig is up.
The film is a bit hard to watch in places, but given all the warnings we’re getting about the deleterious effect mankind is having on the oceans and the species they contain, I think it behooves people to learn what is happening and speak out against it.
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What a powerful movie!!
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